


Bride of Tash

by acfellows



Category: Chronicles of Narnia (Movies), Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: F/M, Gen, Interspecies Romance, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-19
Updated: 2016-08-28
Packaged: 2017-12-20 16:19:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 37
Words: 109,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/889320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acfellows/pseuds/acfellows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bride of Tash is Narnia fan fiction, set chronologically between the events of "The Magician's Nephew" and "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe".</p>
<p>Did you ever wonder what it would be like to grow to adulthood in a fantasy world, only to be dragged back to a conventional childhood, like the young Pevensies were?</p>
<p>Additionally, have you ever wondered how the Tisrocs came to claim themselves as descendents of the evil god Tash?</p>
<p>Ultimately, what would it be like to live in a world where Gods and god-like entities take a personal role in shaping the course of events?</p>
<p>Bride of Tash explores these concepts, suggesting one possible explanation for the claims of the Tisrocs, and follows the story of Josie, an Australian girl who is transported into Narnia, where she is presented with a difficult task that becomes more complicated due to unexpected intervention.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. An Unpromising Beginning

Tash had always been told he was perfectly and completely useless.  
  
‘Perfectly and completely useless,’ his father would say, in a voice that was an instrument for making absolutely clear statements of mathematically precise fact. His brothers would nod their heads solemnly in agreement, and his sisters and mothers would creak wheezily from their alcoves to show that they also agreed that Tash was perfectly and completely useless.  
  
Tash would bow his head and let his arms droop, as if to agree that what his father said was true.  
  
‘And yet,’ Tash would think to himself, ‘I am not useless at all.’ And he would daydream of what he would do one day to prove to everyone that he was not perfectly and completely useless and lose track of what his father was saying.  
  
It is not my intention to excuse anything Tash did or didn’t do on the grounds that he had an unpleasant childhood. I am not telling you this so that you will feel sorry for him, or so you can psychoanalyse him. It is only that if Tash hadn’t had an unpleasant childhood, he would have gone on to live a very ordinary life like his brothers and would not come into this story at all.  
  
For the first four years of his life no one said a kind word to Tash. Four years among the thalarka is about the same as fifteen or sixteen of our years, for the world of the thalarka rolls sluggishly around their great green marrow-fat pea of a sun. In all that time no one told Tash that he was anything other than perfectly and completely useless.  
  
In point of fact, he was useless. To live in the Plain of Ua requires stamina, to work all day in the endless fields of mud: planting grith, and fertilising grith, and weeding grith, and warding off the beasts of mire and mist that are eager to eat the tender young grith plants, and harvesting the spindly fruit of the grith that must be picked in darkness and husked and pickled the same night it is picked so it will not spoil. Tash was weak, and could not do any of these things for more than half an hour at a stretch. Furthermore, he was sickly, and was forever getting fevers that made him no good for any work at all for days on end. Worse, he was impatient and easily distracted, and long before he was too weak to work he would usually have wandered off to tease some many-legged crawling thing with a bit of stick, or make little dams and canals in the mud with the hoe he was supposed to be weeding with. And he was clumsy: he would trample the little grith plants, and pull them up instead of the weeds, and at harvest time he would get bits of husk in the pickling pot, and drop fruit in the mud, and stab his fingers on the prickly parts of the fruit so that they swelled up and were perfectly and completely useless for any more husking.  
  
Once in each long year of the thalarka was the festival of Quambu Vashan, which was held in the city where the Procurator of the Overlord had her alcove, some days journey away on the edge of the Plain of Ua. There was always great feasting at the time of the festival of Quambu Vashan, and acrobats and clowns, though only old Raaku of all the villagers had ever seen them.  
  
Two or three times a year the rain would stop and the sun would peer down through a canyon in the clouds. Then the thalarka in the fields would down tools and try not to look up at the great green marrow-fat pea of the sun and mutter proverbs. Tash would always look up at the sunlit sides of the canyons of cloud- which were almost too bright to see- and dream of what it must be like to be up there.  
  
Eight times a year was the frenzy of the harvest, and after the harvest came the feasting, and after the feasting the coming of the Overlord’s tax collectors, to carry off rather a lot of the pickled grith that was left over from the feasting.  
  
Two or three hundred times a year there would be some sort of holiday to break the round of working in the fields, with the proper dates for each holiday kept in order by the priests. There would be dancing in figures, and wagers on fights between caged mire beasts that were things like hairless weasels, and the priests would usually sacrifice something and make patterns on the walls of the priest-house with dripping bits from its inside.  
  
Every day it rained.  
  
The plain of Ua was a plain of grey mud, and the skies were of grey cloud, and the stick-like grith were grey, and the huts of the thalarka were grey. The thalarka themselves were also grey. The huts of the thalarka were dry inside with a fitful clammy dryness, in which lamps burned only with a feeble bluish flame. Tash thought fire was splendid, since it was not grey. That was how he managed to burn one of his hands rather badly just before the harvest. At this particular harvest he was needed more than usual, since his two oldest brothers had been married off into other villages since the harvest before, but because of his injury he ended up being even less useful than usual.  
  
This was not long before the festival of Quambu Vashan. Besides clowns and acrobats, great numbers of sacrifices of a particular kind were always required at this festival, so it was the custom of the tax collectors of the Overlord to demand from each village they visited at the harvest an appropriate sacrifice. This would not be important if it were not that the sacrifices required for the festival of Quambu Vashan were thalarka of about four years of age. It was required that they have all their limbs intact, and have no obvious serious blemishes, but otherwise it was all the same to the Overlord whether they were useless or not. This part of the festival did not feature in Raaku’s stories, and the older thalarka of the village tended not to discuss it in the presence of younger ones.  
  
‘We should give Tash to the tax collectors for sacrifice at the festival of Quambu Vashan,’ said Tash’s father to his mothers one night. ‘For he is perfectly and completely useless for anything else.’  
  
A family that freely gave the sacrifice for the festival of Quambu Vashan would be noted on the books of the tax collectors and not be called upon to give another for a generation, during which time more useful members of the family suitable for sacrifice would be spared to work in the fields. It was also the custom in Tash’s village for the families who had not given a son or daughter to the tax collectors to bring presents to the family that had, and speak approvingly of them, so Tash’s father’s suggestion was quite a good one. It is only fair on Tash’s mothers to report that they did not croak their agreement immediately, not until Tash’s father had reminded them of these things.  
  
So after the harvest when the tax collectors of the Overlord came to the village Tash was sent off with them.  
  
‘You are being apprenticed to the tax collectors,’ Tash’s father told him. ‘You will leave with them when they have finished lunch.’  
  
Tash did not realise why he had been sent off until he had been travelling the rest of that day with the tax collectors. He had spent most of the afternoon staring up at the roiling patterns of the clouds, imagining that they had hidden meanings. They were like secret symbols from a mysterious power in the sky sending orders to its minions in the mire, in a tremendously complicated language that never said exactly the same thing twice. The tax collectors had already collected four other young thalarka for the festival of Quambu Vashan. Three of them were girls, and Tash could not understand their speech – it was another part of Tash’s uselessness that he had a bad ear for women’s language – and the fourth was a boy. He was slow-witted and smaller than Tash, but he had paid more attention to the world around him.  
  
‘Where do you think we will stop?’ said Tash as it started to get dark, meaning ‘where are we going to stop tonight’, but the slow-witted one took him at his word and said, ‘At the festival’.  
  
‘Why did you say, ‘at the festival’?’ said Tash, since he was bored and couldn’t think of anything better to do than quibble with the slow-witted boy. ‘Why not say we’re going to the city of the Overlord’s Procurator?’  
  
‘I don’t understand,’ said the slow-witted boy. He hung his head and drooped his arms in exactly the same way Tash had always done when his father told him how useless he was.  
  
‘So, what does the festival have to do with it?’ said Tash impatiently.  
  
‘I’m going to be a sacrifice at the festival,’ said the slow-witted boy. He said it in the same way that Tash’s brothers would say things like ‘I’m going to weed the south-eastern corner of the field today’.  
  
Tash looked around at the others and thought that the tax collectors had treated all five of them in exactly the same way since they had left the village. Here they were, all walking in a line through the mud. And he realised that his father had very probably lied to him, and that he was going to be a sacrifice as well. For a while he could say nothing at all.  
  
‘I seem to be in terrible trouble,’ Tash thought.  
  
Over the next few days of tramping across the Plain of Ua Tash tried to escape many times, but the tax collectors were experienced collectors of sacrifices, and he had no luck. They went through nine more villages and collected nine more sacrifices for the festival of Quambu Vashan. Five of these were boys, and they were all slow-witted except for Zish, who was contrary.  
  
‘I was opposed to the ways of the village because they were brutish and stupid,’ said Zish, in a way Tash had never heard before, that was bitter and mirthful at the same time, as if it pleased Zish more than anything to call the ways of his village brutish and stupid. ‘So I’m to be sacrificed now,’ he went on. ‘At least my blood will be of some use to the Overlord Varkarian, if it is of no further use to me.’  
  
‘I’m sure there is some way to escape,’ said Tash. ‘If we work together’-  
  
‘There is no way to escape,’ said Zish in his bitter mirthful way. ‘This is our destiny, Valgur’ - he had confused Tash with one of the other boys, whose name was Valgur, and took no notice of Tash’s efforts to correct him - ‘to serve the Overlord by being sacrifices at the festival of Quambu Vashan. Our destiny is inexorable. Our destiny is irresistible.’  
  
Tash stopped listening to Zish as he talked more about inexorable destiny and the usefulness of being sacrificed. Tash was not sure whether this was what Zish really believed or not. Perhaps he did not know himself whether he believed it or not. Sometimes Zish talked in such a way that Tash thought he must be mad, and sometimes Zish told Tash that he was mad.  
  
‘I have said the same thing to you a dozen times, Valgur, and you haven’t said a word back, just gone on staring at the clouds,’ said Zish. ‘You must be mad. It is no wonder you are only fit to be sacrificed.’  
  
At any rate Zish was too contrary to be in any way helpful to Tash.  
  
If he had not known he was going to be sacrificed at the end of it Tash would have had a lovely time. The long hours of walking were dreadfully wearying at first, but he felt himself growing stronger each day, and the sacrifices were fed twice a day with the freshly pickled grith the tax collectors had gathered, which was more and nicer food than Tash had eaten before. Each day he saw new villages, with new and different temples, and new fields cut into different shapes, and great coiling worms of rivers, and broad lakes spotted with rafts, and companies of spear-men and javelin-women marching on the highroads, their armour as silvery-grey as the lakes and spotted with metal spikes instead of rafts. He had seen nothing but his village and the fields immediately around it for his whole life and found he quite liked travelling.  
  
At the edge of the Procurator’s city Tash’s party met up with several other parties of tax collectors. All the sacrifices were collected together and tied in a long chain to keep them tidy, ankle to ankle and wrist to wrist, and in this way they all shuffled together into the Procurator’s city. This city was made of grey stone, huts and palaces alike, and they were scattered together in no particular order over the plain, at first with plenty of space between them but then closer and closer together until they almost blocked out the clouds.  
  
‘Do not let the splendour of this place fool you, Valgur,’ said Zish. ‘Here, too, the ways of the common people are brutish and stupid. But we are irresistibly called to a higher destiny. Inexorably!’  
  
In the middle of the city was the Tower of the Procurator of the Overlord, ten or twelve times higher than any other built thing Tash had ever seen. It was carved on every side with images of mist-beasts and mire-beasts and thalarka, all larger than life, and all making gestures of obeisance to the sigil of the Overlord Varkarian, which was at the top of the tower and was worked in huge blue stones like fire.  
  
‘Sweeter than narbul venom is it to serve the Overlord,’ intoned the most senior of the tax collectors, when the party could first see this sigil in blue stones like fire. All the more junior tax collectors dutifully intoned in unison that it was sweeter than narbul venom to serve the Overlord, and so did the long line of sacrifices. Strictly speaking Tash had no idea whether this was true or not, having never tasted narbul venom nor anything other than grith. But he intoned along with the others. They only had a few moments to look at the tower. Tash would have stared longer, but was dragged along as he was chained to everyone else. Then they were steered through a big black door and down a long ramp which stretched down into a chamber somewhere underneath the tower. The ramp ended somewhere in the middle of the chamber, which stretched off into darkness on every side, over-warm and evil-smelling. Some dozens of boys and girls for the sacrifice were there already, chained to posts set in the floor in groups of six or seven. On top of these posts there were lanterns, and every post that had thalarka chained to it had its lantern lit, with a dancing flame that was more green than blue. Tash’s long line of sacrifices was split up into groups of six or seven and chained to posts, and at the same time the lanterns on top of the post were lit. But there were still many many more empty posts with unlit lanterns.  
  
The chamber was drier than any place Tash had ever been. You or I would have found this its one redeeming feature, but to Tash it was unnerving. The dryness hurt his ears and made his throat itch.  
  
The thalarka who lit the lanterns was an old priest woman, bent over like a grith plant that has grown in too dark a shadow, and she lit the lanterns with a thin silvery stick longer than she was tall. Tash found the lighting of the lanterns very interesting and wondered if the old priest stayed down in the chamber all the time, waiting for a reason to light the lanterns, or if she went somewhere else. She seemed so completely a creature of the dark chamber that Tash could not imagine her being anywhere else. Tash ended up chained with a group of dim-witted boys around one of the pillars at the edge of the darkness.  
  
As soon as all the sacrifices were properly chained a group of younger priests handed out something to eat that was not grith. They were cakes of something very much nicer than grith, though I dare say you or I would still have found them very nasty, and Tash devoured his greedily. So did all the others. When they had finished eating two more priests in more resplendent garments – still mostly grey, but shiny – came and gave speeches, one in male language and one in female language.  
  
The speech that Tash heard went something like this:  
  
‘Welcome in the name of the Overlord Varkarian. Truly it is sweeter than narbul venom, and more pleasant than the song of horn and cymbal, to serve the Overlord Varkarian. Truly are you favoured, for through your sacrifice the Overlord will be glorified. Truly will your sacrifice bring the inscrutable designs of the Overlord closer to their inexorable fruition. Though you may have been useless until this moment, very soon you will attain to a destiny greater than that of many a skilled spear-man or artifex. The part you play in the designs of the Overlord is a very great one.’  
  
There was much more like this and Tash soon stopped paying attention to it. He was more interested in the costumes of the priests than in what they were saying. Their chest pieces were particularly splendid, much more splendid than the chestpieces the priests of his village wore when they sacrificed mire beasts. They were set with such marvellous stones, blue and green and other colours he could not name, and shone delightfully in the lanternlight.  
  
The priest explained while Tash was not listening that they would be given things to eat as nice as the cakes, or nicer, for the next few days until the festival, and that they would be taken out in batches and cleaned and ornamented before the ceremony, and then again that theirs was a rare and glorious destiny.  
  
Because he was not listening Tash was taken by surprise to be taken out and scrubbed and plastered with some sort of oil and hung with jangling bits of fine chain. The only good thing about the oil was that it made it quite impossible to tell how evil-smelling the chamber was. The smell of the oil stung and tickled and burned and it was almost impossible to think of anything else when you had been plastered with it.  
  
‘What’s that you’ve done to your hand, lad?’ asked the young priest who was seeing to the oiling of the sacrifices. ‘Burnt it, eh?’ The young priest found this amusing. ‘Well, mind you keep it away from the lanterns now. Stick one little finger in the fire and you’ll be sizzled to a crisp in an instant, with that oil on you.’  
  
Tash took respectful note of this advice.  
  
Tash had been chained to a post on the other side of the ramp from Zish, and the dim-witted boys who were chained with him were too dim-witted to be any use talking to. He spent the night peering out into the further reaches of the chamber, wondering what was there and thinking of all the marvellous things he had seen in the last few days and what a pity it was that he would be sacrificed in a few more days. The sacrifices around him shuffled and wheezed and jangled in their sleep and the smell of the oil hung thick and heavy in the air. No one came and turned down the lanterns, but they seemed to dim of their own accord, and burnt with feeble flames that were greenish-grey, if such a flame were possible.  
  
Tash found it impossible to get free of his chains. Even if he had, it would surely have been impossible for him to have forced his way through the heavy doors, past the watchers beyond, and made his way to somewhere safe.  
  
‘It seems such a waste, when the world is so big and interesting, to be ending so soon,’ he thought to himself. And a black mood took him and he thought to himself: ‘Perhaps I am useless after all’.


	2. The Vanilla Bush Wind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Introducing Josie, who makes an unexpected journey to a new country.

Josie held her face into the wind and felt the wild exuberance of it like she had so many nights before. This time there was something different in the air, she was sure. The faintest trace of mists that had hung over ancient hedgerows, winds that had whistled across heather and down the chimneys of stone cottages, smoke belched from factories and railway engines.

‘I can smell England,’ she told Miss Miles.

‘Don’t be silly,’ said Miss Miles. As usual, Josie could hear in her voice that Miss Miles was nervous about being on deck after dark, though she tried not to show it. ‘England is still hundreds of miles away.’

‘Yes, Miss Miles,’ said Josie and sighed. She did not want to get into an argument with her chaperone, in which Miss Miles would invariably be the sensible one and she would be the self-evidently silly one. At the very least Miss Miles would be upset enough to make her come inside. She was always looking for excuses to make Josie come in out of the wind and the sea spray.

‘Do you think father will remember me?’ said Josie.

‘Of course he will, dear,’ said Miss Miles.

‘It’s been almost ten years,’ said Josie. ‘I would think you could bring just about any girl of about the right age and colouring and say she was Josephine Furness. Do you think he could tell the difference?’

‘Don’t be silly,’ said Miss Miles, and gave Josie’s hand a squeeze. ‘Of course he’ll recognise his own daughter.’ But to Josie Miss Miles sounded more nervous than ever.

Josie had only the vaguest memories of her father, a whiskery thundercloud of tobacco and eau de cologne that would roll into her life from time to time and then roll out again as quickly as it had come, ‘on business’ to Perth or the Eastern Goldfields or some other place, until one day just before her fifth birthday he had gone away ‘on business’ to the other side of the world and never returned. And now Josie’s Mama was gone, and her dear sister Gerry who had always looked after her when Mama had one of her turns was gone, and she was going to England to live with the whiskery thundercloud who had abandoned them so long ago.

It had all been sorted out by post. It was impossible to tell, from the stilted words of her father’s letters, if he really wanted her or not. She had made Miss Miles read and re-read them to her on the voyage until she knew every word by heart. It was possible that her father was stricken with grief for the troubles that had happened to the family he left behind, and was desperate to make what amends he could by welcoming his lost daughter, but just could not find the words to say so. Or, it was possible that he found the whole matter a great bother and distraction from whatever he did ‘on business’ and had long ago put out of his mind that he had left a family in Australia. She sighed again.

‘It’s getting terribly cold,’ said Miss Miles, with a shiver. The wind had shifted somehow so that it seemed to blow full in their faces whichever way they were facing. ‘We should be getting inside.’

‘Can I wait out just a moment longer?’ said Josie.

It was a plea she made every night, and every night Miss Miles made the same reply. Miss Miles had been Gerry’s friend- she had been Narelle to Gerry, and was not so very many years older than Josie herself- and did not have the backbone an older chaperone would have had.

‘Just for a moment, Josie,’ said Miss Miles. ‘I’ll wait for you inside.’

‘Thank you, Miss Miles,’ said Josie, and turned to give her a smile.

‘Just one more minute, then you come inside,’ said Miss Miles. She walked away, but Josie could tell she was hovering in the doorway, watching her.

‘Go on,’ said Josie. ‘I’m not made of cut glass, you know.’

Josie heard Miss Miles mutter something about wilful girls and close the door. She was probably still hovering, just on the other side, but Josie did not care.

Josie could no longer smell England on the wind. It was all sea now, heavy with mermaid’s tears and codfish and cold dark water that had spent a few lifetimes circling the world far below the surface before returning to the air again just now. Josie’s face was bitterly cold and if she had been sensible she would have suggested going inside herself ten minutes ago. She refused to admit that she was cold. She let the spray sting her face, trying to recapture the trace of England that she had smelled before. Probably the wind had shifted, and was coming out of the open ocean now. It was certainly getting stronger, minute by minute.

‘If only I could be sure father would be happy to see me,’ Josie thought. Mama had never said a harsh word about Josie’s father, only looked terribly woeful whenever he was spoken of. Not that he was spoken of much. There had been letters when Josie had been younger, but they were the same sort of stilted letters father had sent after the tragedy, and they had stopped coming a long time ago.

The wind seemed to stop entirely for an instant, and start up again from another direction, a proper gale. This wind had the trace of some flower in it that smelled a bit like vanilla bush - it wasn’t vanilla bush, but it was something like it. Josie did not have time to think about what it could be, because at that moment the ship reared up like some fool of a thoroughbred and tipped her over the railing into the sea. Josie had no sensation of passing through the air but felt immediately plunged into the water.

‘I suppose I am going to die now so there was no use worrying,’ thought Josie, surprised at how unafraid she seemed to be. There was no question of swimming in the heavy coat and long skirts she had been wearing to keep off the cold on deck. Josie was not sure whether she was upside down or right side up. She tried to compose herself and say a prayer, but all that came into her head was ‘now I lay me down to sleep’ which was not particularly appropriate for being tumbled through the icy waters of the North Atlantic. Josie felt very sorry for Miss Miles, who would surely think it was all her fault that she had been lost overboard.

‘How silly I’ve been worrying about such a lot of silly things,’ thought Josie. She remembered in particular one time she had been beastly to little Ada Plummer over something that now seemed of no consequence whatsoever.

‘I hope it won’t be too horrible drowning,’ she thought. Then she was afraid, and thrashed desperately about without thinking at all.

Suddenly she was not in the water anymore. She did not feel desperately short of breath, and she did not feel particularly cold. For the merest instant she thought she might be in Heaven. She was lying on her back in soft grass, with sun on her face, and the air was filled with the smell of the flower that was something like vanilla bush- and also lemon blossoms, and jasmine, and three or four other pleasant things that she couldn’t identify.

‘But I can’t see,’ Josie thought. ‘Surely in Heaven I would be able to see.’ She put her hand in front of her eyes and felt the flutter of her eyelids to make sure that she did not just have her eyes closed. She was still blind.

‘And I wouldn’t be wearing these clothes’ she told herself. In Heaven she would have expected to be wearing flowing robes – or possibly nothing at all - but she seemed to be wearing the exact clothes she had been wearing on the deck of the Southern Cross, though they were now dry.

Josie sat up. She could hear birds singing, but not of any sort she recognised. She could also hear running water. She seemed to be only a yard or so from the edge of a stream. There were branches moving in the wind, but not right above her; maybe fifty feet away. The grass had little flowers in it, tufted ones shaped a bit like dandelions, and it was from these that the vanilla bush smell came from. The sun on her face cooled momentarily, then warmed again, and she imagined there must be little clouds scooting across the sky.

‘Curiouser and curiouser,’ she said to herself, because she had to hear the sound of a human voice, and the only thing she had ever heard of before that was remotely similar to what had just happened to her was what happened to Alice when she fell down a rabbit hole.

Josie stood up carefully expecting to be aching all over, but was not really surprised to find that she wasn’t. She felt more cheerful than she had in a long time. It had been of course a very cheering surprise to find herself alive at all. But even if she had been in no danger before, she felt she would have found the place she was in cheering. Somehow she had fallen into spring out of winter. She took a few careful steps and heard the whirr of wings- some of the unfamiliar birds had decided she had come too close. A few steps more, and her outstretched hands brushed against a bush. It had soft fleshy leaves that were not smooth, but covered with down, and it smelled marvellous but strange, like the birds sounded. She brushed her arm up and down, side to side, to get a feel for how big the bush was, and as she did so there was the startled sound of a hoofed animal leaping up and cantering away. It sounded like a sheep-sized animal rather than a horse-sized one. She could smell it too, a little- a warm deserty smell that was not at all like sheep’s wool. The noise of the animal startled Josie in turn, and she laughed like she sometimes did when she had a fright that turned out not to be so bad after all.

‘Excuse me!’ she said.

The cantering slowed to a walk and then stopped. ‘What did you say?’ said a voice. It was a voice that seemed to belong to a girl some years younger than Josie, and one that could have made a good living singing on the stage.

‘I said excuse me,’ said Josie. It had not sounded to Josie as if there had been anyone else there, but she supposed there must have been. ‘I didn’t mean to startle it.’

‘I’ve never heard a Daughter of Helen say ‘excuse me’ before,’ said the voice. It really was a very pretty voice. ‘You have a peculiar way of talking’ it added cautiously.

‘You have a rather peculiar way of talking yourself,’ said Josie.

‘I didn’t mean to be disrespectful,’ said the voice. It sounded nervous and so did the animal, which took a few paces back and forth. Josie wondered if she was riding the animal and if in that case she was about to suddenly bolt off. The voice continued. ‘If you don’t mind me saying so, and I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but you Daughters of Helen and Sons of Frank are usually too caught up in your own affairs as Ladies and Lords of Creation to care whether you startle gazelles or not.’

Josie hadn’t heard any sound of harness, or of anyone moving about, just the animal. She had been reminded of Alice and the looking glass ever since she arrived in this place, and thinking of the conversation Alice had with a fawn in the wood she asked a question she had never imagined she would ask anyone.

‘Are you a gazelle?’ she asked.

‘Yes’ said the voice. ‘My name is Alabitha. My mother is Falabitha, and my father is Caladru, who is the Prince of all the gazelles in this country.’

‘My name is Josephine Furness,’ said Josie. ‘You can call me Josie instead of Miss Furness if you like. My mother’s name was Annabelle, and my father’s name is Leonard. Pleased to meet you, Alabitha.’

‘I’m so glad you’re pleased to meet me,’ said the gazelle warily. ‘I suppose I’m pleased to meet you as well.’ There was a pause and a shuffling of cloven feet while Josie wondered which of the many questions she had she would ask, but Alabitha spoke again first. ‘Have you come from one of those faraway northern countries where men and animals get along with each other, Lady Josie?’

‘I’m from somewhere a long way off,’ said Josie. ‘It can’t be any of the countries you are thinking of since we don’t have any talking animals. I don’t know how you would get there from here.’

‘Oh’ said Alabitha. ‘Are you lost? Where are you trying to get to? I know all of the ways around here.’

Josie remembered the Red Queen saying that all of the ways were her ways, and for the first time since she arrived in this place felt uneasy. What exactly was she going to do? Where was she, and how was she going to survive in this place?

‘I don’t know,’ said Josie. ‘I expect I must be lost. I don’t know how I got here, or where here is.’

‘That’s too bad’ said the gazelle. She padded a little closer to her. ‘I don’t know how you got here either. I’m sure you weren’t here when I got here, and I’m sure I would have woken up when you got here – unless I’m getting a stuffed ear.’ The gazelle snorted and shook her head three or four times.

‘The last I remember I fell in the ocean’ said Josie. ‘And then I was lying next to the water here.’

‘I’ve never seen the ocean,’ said the gazelle. ‘It’s a frightful long way to the ocean from here. This is Lion’s Pool. See the carved stone where the water comes out of the rock?’

‘I don’t,’ said Josie. ‘I don’t actually see anything. I’m blind.’

‘Oh’ said Alabitha. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘It’s not your fault,’ said Josie. ‘I’m used to it.’

‘I can tell you what the carved stone looks like’ said Alabitha. ‘It’s carved to look like a lion, as large as life. The Sons of Frank and Daughters of Helen made it long ago, to show that it was one of the places where the Lion appeared.’

‘The Lion?’

‘The Lion, you know, Aslan,’ said the gazelle, in the gentle but nervous way you remind someone who has had a bad shock of something that they really ought to know.

At the sound of the name Aslan Josie felt something like she had felt when she could smell England on the wind over the ocean. It was like the first breeze from a far country that was at the same time terrifying and familiar, where everything is larger and brighter and stronger than home, yet at the same time in some strange way more truly ‘home’ than the home she had always known. She felt as if she never wanted to hear the name again, and as if she could listen to it forever. At that moment the first wanting was stronger, so though she was burning to know exactly who this Aslan was and why it was so important, she could not bring herself to say the name.

‘Oh,’ said Josie.

‘It was years and years and years ago,’ said Alabitha. ‘Before anyone who is alive now was alive. Except for some of the trees, probably.’

‘Which direction is it?’ asked Josie. ‘The carving?’

Alabitha told her and she walked up the stream for twenty yards or so on soft springy grass to the place. There was a mass of granite meeting her feet at about a forty five degree angle and she had to clamber up it a few steps and reach forward to touch the carving. The surface was worn and rough but the shape of the Lion’s face was perfectly distinct. She could feel the whorls of the mane worked very clearly, the mouth closed in a calm and serious way and the eyes open wide. It seemed even larger than life to Josie, but she had never been close enough to a lion to touch one. She stepped back down onto the grass.

‘I think it is splendid that you can make such things,’ said Alabitha, who had followed her, and was standing closer to Josie than she had before. ‘It must be wonderful to have hands.’

The strangeness of everything was suddenly overwhelming. Josie could feel tears starting to well up.

‘I don’t know what to do,’ she said.

Alabitha shuffled awkwardly as if she was not used to humans being anything but imperious. ‘You will probably think of it,’ she said. ‘Daughters of Helen always do.’

‘I suppose so,’ said Josie, in a small trembling voice.

Alabitha fidgeted nervously some more.

‘You’re sure to be here for some important reason, or you wouldn’t have turned up at the Lion’s Pool. I’ll tell my father you’re here and he will send someone wise to talk to you, and they will figure out what it is.’

‘That sounds good,’ said Josie in the same small trembling voice, thinking of her own father. ‘Thank you.’ She managed to pull herself together and not cry until Alabitha had trotted off. Then it was all too much.

After a while nothing had changed, but Josie felt better for the crying. She took off her coat- which was much too warm for this place- and her boots and stockings, and lay down in a shady spot where she could feel the deliciously cool grass on her feet. She listened to the tinkling water and the wind in the leaves and the strange birds and listened out for any other creature, but there was nothing.

‘The wise gazelle will be here any minute, so I must be sure to stay awake,’ she thought, and laughed a laugh that was only a little a sob to think she was waiting on a wise gazelle. But she fell asleep anyway.


	3. Further Up and Further In

Tash was awakened by the silence. For a very long time he had lain there listening to the shuffling and wheezing and jangling and occasional unhappy gabbling of the other sacrifices, and he must finally have fallen asleep, but he awoke with a start to a silence like death. No one stirred. No one wheezed or muttered nonsense words to themselves. It was yet harder to see than it had been, for some kind of thick fog had filled the chamber and the lights on the pillars spent themselves in muddled grey-green blobs and failed to illuminate anything more than a few paces distant.

‘I hope they are not all dead,’ said Tash. It would not really have been any worse for him to be chained up with some hundreds of dead bodies than with some hundreds of sacrifices who were to be killed in a few days at any rate, but it was a horrible thing to imagine, and frightened him every bit as much as it would you or me. He felt at the idiot boys chained to his left and to his right, but could not wake them, nor could he tell for sure whether they were breathing or not. When he moved, his chains clanked, but less than they should have, like they were clanking underwater.

‘I wish I was anywhere else at all,’ thought Tash unhappily.

A moment later things became yet more alarming, for Tash felt something crawling on his arm. It was a quick tickly rasping thing with too many legs, as big as his hand, and he could see it only as the merest flicker of movement in the gloom.

‘I must be still and quiet and maybe it will not bite me,’ said Tash to himself. He had learned this way of dealing with biting creatures through painful experience. So he sat very still as the something crawled down to his wrist and sat there in an unruly ticklish way like a newborn sister, and as another something of the same sort crawled onto one of his legs and scrabbled to his ankle, and then another, and another, until the rasping things were perched everywhere the chains bound Tash to the stone post. Then they began to gnaw. Not on Tash – for which he was very grateful – but on the fetters that held him. He could feel the patient grinding of their teeth in his bones, an inexorable gnawing that went on and on without ever slowing down or speeding up. He had the feeling that if these creatures with too many legs set their tiny minds to it they would simply keep gnawing forever through anything that was in their way, flesh and bone and metal and stone, year after year and generation after generation, until they had gnawed a tunnel through the world from one side to another.

After a long time the things with too many legs had chewed through all of Tash’s fetters. The chains fell dully to the floor, one by one, and the many-legged things gathered in a vague mass before him. He could see their green eyes shining now, little pinpricks of light in the fog. They were looking at him.

‘It is better to do something than nothing,’ thought Tash, which was one of the proverbs he had heard all his life whenever he had been found doing nothing. He stood up, which was more difficult than he expected. First one of the many-legged creatures darted away into the darkness, then another one. The remaining green eyes watching him seemed to be brighter. He took a step in the direction the creatures seemed to be going and they took off before him in a rush, their eyes bounding like grith nodules in a pot of boiling water.

As Tash walked away from the pillars where the sacrifices were chained, the fog lifted and the eyes of the creatures grew brighter and brighter. The strange silence also faded, and Tash could hear the scrape of his own feet on the pavement, and the rustle of the many-legged creatures around him. There were more of them than there had been: more and more, until he could dimly see his injured hand by the glow of their eyes, and the shadows cast by their capering bodies. They were leading him away from the doors to the outside, across the vast chamber, deeper and deeper into the evil-smelling darkness.

‘Now I am somewhere else, as I wished,’ thought Tash. ‘It is better, I suppose. How this chamber goes on and on. ’

If it had been outside and lit, it would doubtless have seemed no great expanse, smaller than many of the grith fields in which Tash had spent his life; but it was inside and dark, so seemed to be without beginning or end.

But at last it did end: stone walls closed in around Tash, and the air grew damper and less evil-smelling. The creatures danced around him, steering him first one way and then another through what seemed to be a maze of passages, sometimes down, sometimes up, but more often down. The air grew damper yet, and the walls Tash came close to were slick with slime. Once they passed over a thunderous stream of water, and another time Tash had to climb over a statue that had fallen over to block the way. Tash would have liked to stop and examine the statue more closely, for he had never been so close to any of the great carven images which the Tower was decorated, but the many-legged creatures became so terribly agitated when he bent down to peer at it that he judged it unwise.

‘After all if I scare them away I will have no light at all, and will never be able to find my way anywhere in the dark,’ he thought. And he followed the creatures on, and on, and on, through the maze.

Tash was dizzy from watching the green eyes of the creatures, and weary from not being able to stop and ponder things, and feeling rather sore from one particular place he had been clouted that had not seemed such a big deal at the time, when the passage he was following ended abruptly in a wall.

Several of the creatures took off excitedly into the darkness, while others scrabbled up the walls and even clung to the ceiling above Tash’s head. Before he had time to think of much of anything at all he saw a light that was not dancing and green. It was a bluish light like fire that was very bright – really too bright to look at directly – and it traced a line along the wall in front of him, from the floor to somewhere well above his head. Then it grew wider and wider, and was a door opening into a room, where everything was too bright to see. Of course the light poured out of this room as well, so it was just as impossible to see anything outside, but Tash was vaguely aware of the many-legged creatures capering into the room like mad things. A slightly darker patch loomed out of the brightness, took Tash by an arm and steered him into the room, less roughly than he was accustomed to.

‘Stand still,’ said a voice. ‘Don’t fall over. And straighten up.’ It was the voice of a very old thalarka, and it spoke the words very carefully, as if they were made out of something fragile and would break if spoken too roughly.

Tash did his best to follow these sensible instructions. Little by little his eyes adjusted and he could make out the source of the voice. The unbearable brightness came after all from a rather small lamp, which filled the room with wavering blue light and a sickly sweet smell. The lamp hung from the ceiling above a stone table covered with mysterious devices, which under normal circumstances Tash would have been inordinately curious about. There were books, too, like the ones the tax collectors carried, but instead of one there were scores, stacked on the table and on shelves on the far wall. Clinging to the walls – and the shelves – were very many of the things with too many legs, shifting ceaselessly about and rustling like a crowd of villagers on a festival day. In some curious way Tash was quite sure that they were paying attention to the old thalarka; that he was their Overlord, and that their mindless whispering meant something very like ‘sweeter than narbul venom is it to serve the Overlord’. In the lamplight the eyes that had lit Tash’s way were nearly invisible, buried deep in their wrinkled beastly faces, and they looked every bit as horrid as Tash had first imagined in the darkness.

The thalarka had one withered arm and one blind eye, and stood hunched over so that this eye was level with Tash’s eyes though if he had stood straight he would have been rather tall. He wore a necklace with a sigil of reddish-black stones, and with his remaining good eye he studied Tash with a furious silent intensity.

‘Yes... yes,’ the old thalarka said to himself. ‘You will do.’

It was better to be told that he would do, than to be told he was perfectly and completely useless, Tash thought. He bowed his head and let his arms droop, but he let his arms droop less than he usually did when his elders spoke to him, and when he bowed his head he kept one eye peeking at what the old thalarka was doing.

‘You don’t appear to be witless,’ said the old thalarka, keeping his eye on Tash while picking up a complicated metal instrument from the table. The lamplight reflected prettily from it. ‘Can you talk?’

‘Yes, Much-Knowing and Venerable Antiquated One,’ said Tash. ‘What does that thing do?’

The old thalarka raised the instrument to his eye and looked through it at Tash, making a clicking noise in his throat. He adjusted a knob on its side, took it down and adjusted another knob, then raised it to his eye again. Tash watched these proceedings with fascination. He had not really expected the old thalarka to answer his question, but after making a few more adjustments he said something that must have been an answer.

‘It uses certain little known properties of solar radiation to estimate the eckward component of the aetheric vibrations.’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Tash. ‘Much-Knowing and Venerable Antiquated One,’ he added hastily after a moment.

‘Of course you don’t,’ said the old thalarka. ‘If you did, you wouldn’t be chained up under the Procurator’s tower waiting to be sacrificed. You would be the apprentice of one of my rivals, and I would have brought you here to persuade you betray them. Or perhaps to torture you to death, as a warning to your master not to interfere with my plans.’

‘I see,’ said Tash. ‘Much-Knowing and Venerable Antiquated One.’

‘Don’t look so alarmed,’ said the old thalarka, setting down the instrument and picking up another one – still keeping his one eye fixed on Tash. ‘I have no interest in torturing you to death. It is quite clear that you are an ignorant peasant.’ This new instrument seemed to contain some kind of liquid, which could be ejected in a very thin stream through a small tube when the old thalarka pressed a lever. He did this once, spraying a little of the liquid into the air, and the many-legged creatures seemed to find it of great interest. They began to seethe more rapidly, and a few dropped from the walls to scuttle across the floor.

‘What is that?’ asked Tash, forgetting to add ‘Much-Knowing and Venerable Antiquated One’.

‘Aetheric essence,’ said the old thalarka. Slowly and carefully, he traced a circle with the oil on the floor between himself and Tash about a body-length across. The things with too many legs dropped to the floor in numbers and began to cluster along the circle, climbing on top of each other in their eagerness to be close to it. Tash could hear the grinding sound of their teeth in his bones. It was a very unpleasant sound. It began to smell oddly, like the taste Tash got in his mouth sometimes when he had been clouted over the head.

‘What are they?’ asked Tash.

‘Gnawers,’ said the old thalarka.

‘I have never seen them before,’ said Tash.

‘They are forbidden,’ the old thalarka replied. For the first time, he took his eye of off Tash, to do something fiddly with one of the most complicated looking devices while he consulted one of the books on his table. ‘The penalty for keeping them is death by fire.’

‘Aren’t you afraid I’m going to tell on you? No, you’re not. Oh.’ For the first time Tash considered that there might possibly be worse things than being sacrificed to the glory of the Overlord. The odd smell was stronger now, and the sound of the gnawers gnawing, without becoming any louder, grated more and more insistently on Tash’s mind so that he found it hard to think of anything else. He glanced at the door, considering and then instantly dismissing dashing to it and running off in the dark.

‘What do they gnaw?’ asked Tash after a pause.

‘Everything. Plants. Stones. Men. Even – if encouraged properly – the very tissue of space and time.’ The old thalarka carefully adjusted a knob on the device, glancing every now and again to the book. It was open to a picture, rather than rows of ideographs, Tash saw – some kind of tangle of circles within circles within circles that he wished he could look at more closely.

‘Is that what they’re doing?” asked Tash. ‘Much-knowing...’

‘Oh, you are too clever by half,’ said the old thalarka, amused. ‘Of course. Of course that is what they are doing.’ All the gnawers had clustered in a thick writhing mass around the circle of oil that the old thalarka had made, crawling over one another and sometimes biting through each other’s legs by mistake. The air above them was starting to waver, like the air above the smokeless fires that were kindled in the temples.

Tash asked the question then that had first popped into his mind when he had been brought into the room, but kept being pushed back when he thought of other questions. ‘What are you going to do to me?’

‘Don’t you worry about that,’ said the old thalarka. ‘It will be much more interesting than being sacrificed. Hold out your hands.’

‘Why?’ asked Tash. But he held out his hands, being accustomed to obeying orders. The old thalarka picked a length of silvery cord up from the table and tossed one end across to Tash.

‘You don’t want to let go of that. Just keep holding on, and everything will be fine.’ The old thalarka’s one eye glistened with excitement. He had kept hold of the other end of the cord, which now passed directly over the circle of gnawers.

Tash held the end of the cord tightly. It was comforting, despite everything that had been happened, to be told that everything would be fine if he just held on to it. ‘What does it do?’ he asked.

The old thalarka did not answer, but shifted from one foot to another in his enthusiasm, alternately gazing proudly at the seething gnawers and examining a dial on one of his devices. And a moment later Tash had forgotten that he had asked any such thing.

It was very like when the door had opened. There was a crack of bright light, but it was a crack in the air above the gnawers, rather than a crack in the wall. It swiftly got wider and brighter, and then everything inside it fell out of the world. That was the only way Tash could ever explain it afterwards. A little piece of the universe had been gnawed away at the edges, and it had fallen off into something else. The gnawers stopped gnawing; most of them scuttled backwards, while a few slipped over the edge of the void and were instantly whisked away.

Tash’s eyes refused to tell him what was going on in the space above the circle. It was black and piercingly white at the same time, and it seemed to be in ceaseless motion, but not in any direction that Tash had ever encountered before. The silver cord he held disappeared into one side of it, swaying gently, and reappeared on the other. At the edge of the void the air was shimmering, and seemed to be rushing swiftly like water in a millrace; but the space itself he could not manage to get his thoughts around.

‘Magnificent,’ exclaimed the old thalarka. ‘Exceptional. Look at how smooth the interface is! How stable the aetheric flux! If only Zmaar could see me now. If Tzorch knew how much I have surpassed him. The old fool!‘

The whole thing was so fascinating that Tash forgot to be terrified, and stopped attending to what the old thalarka was saying. He tugged at the cord, ever so gently, to see what would happen. Nothing did. It was as if the void was an immovable object. He stared into the absence of universe, willing himself to make some sense of it. The old thalarka was quite right: whatever else this was, it was certainly more interesting than being sacrificed.

‘Is that clear?’ asked the old thalarka sharply.

‘Yes,’ said Tash without conviction, having no idea what the old thalarka had just said.

‘I am sure the powers – inscrutable as They are – will find you an equitable exchange,’ said the old thalarka, his eyes glistening with triumph. ‘Do not let go of the cord.’

‘Y-‘ Tash began. The old thalarka gave his cord the tiniest of tugs, and Tash’s cord was pulled into the void with inexorable force, as if it was attached to a cart that had fallen over the edge of a cliff. Inwards, upwards, and otherwards, Tash was instantly and irresistibly dragged into a place where nothing made sense.


	4. Mostly Concerning Gazelles

In almost all places it is uncomfortably cold to sleep out of doors in your clothes, and Josie found that the Lion’s Pool was one of them, even with her heavy coat. The scents of the night flowers were different, and the breeze brought no trace of smoke or sheep, but the night had the same feel as cold clear winter nights at home. She tried to curl up into a little ball and go on sleeping when she woke up, but tired as she was she could not manage, and had to get up and stomp backwards and forwards on the soft grass to keep warm. Her thoughts went around and around without getting anywhere. She was in a land with talking animals. For ‘some important reason’, the gazelle had said. She did not know what would happen to her here, and whether she would ever get back. She thought of all the little ways she had done people wrong, and how she might now never have a chance to make them right. She worried about how terrible Miss Miles would feel when she found out she was gone, and then how she might get in terrible trouble for carelessly leaving Josie to stumble over a railing into the ocean. She wondered what her father would think when he got the news. Around and around Josie’s thoughts went, just like they had the night before she had left home to go to England.

By and by the birds began to sing – first one that had a melancholy sort of whistle, and then more and more, none of them familiar. Josie felt the breeze pick up, a breeze that was a little warmer and was heavy with the same vanilla bush smell of the dandelion-like flowers she had smelled the day before. And because you cannot worry forever about things you cannot help when there are things you can do something about that you should, Josie realised that she was really very hungry, and worried about finding something to eat.

‘The gazelle - Arabitha – seemed to know something about people,’ Josie said to herself. ‘So they’ll know I can’t eat grass. Maybe they’ll know something about where to find fruit and nuts that human eat. And there might be fish. I hope they don’t talk. That would be horrible. The birds don’t seem to talk; so probably the fish won’t talk. Stop rambling, Josie.’

Then she heard the sound of great many hooves coming from the same direction as the warm wind. With the dawn came a crowd of gazelles, a couple of dozen, who arranged themselves in front of her in an orderly fashion like a school assembly. The lady gazelles and the smaller children were in one place, with the larger children off to the sides, the boys on one and the girls on the other. Out in front in the place where the headmistress would be in a school assembly was who could only be Caladru, prince of the gazelles.

‘The Lion’s peace be upon you, Lady Josie, Daughter of Helen’, said Caladru, in a voice that put Josie in mind of a bass clarinet. ‘I bid you welcome to the March Plains of Sha, on behalf of all the talking animals who dwell here, and put myself and all my people at your disposal. We have always done all that was in our power to aid the Sons of Frank and Daughters of Helen when they had need to call upon us.’

Josie had not imagined such an occasion being made of her arrival. ‘Thank you, your majesty’ she said, as politely as she could, and curtsied in the direction of Caladru. This seemed like an inadequate reply to Caladru’s grand welcome, but she could not think of exactly what else she should say. After a long pause filled with the shuffling of youthful gazelle hooves Caladru continued.

‘My daughter says that you have come from the sea, Lady Josie, and that you were summoned to the Lion’s Pool on a quest, and now seek guidance on how to proceed further. My Aunt Radamatha knows many tales of the quests that have been made by the Lords and Ladies of Creation since the world was made, and I have asked her to listen to your tale and to provide you with what advice she can.’

‘I am at your service, Lady Josie,’ said another voice, the mellow golden voice of someone who has recently retired wealthy from singing on the stage, a voice that made Josie think of comfortably warm indoor afternoons on a cold day.

‘Thank you,’ said Josie. ‘I suppose I must have been brought here, since I didn’t do anything to bring myself. I was on a ship, and I fell overboard, and then I ended up here without there being anything in between that I can remember. There isn’t anything like this place in the whole world that I know – we don’t have any talking animals there, except birds that copy what people say, and in stories that people have made up.’

There was a loud murmuring of shifting feet and whispered conversations, just like there would be at a school assembly, and Caladru silenced it in almost the same way that a headmistress would, by raising his voice to say something very firmly and slowly with a hint of sharpness to it.

‘We will now leave the Lady Josie to discuss these matters with Radamatha,’ said Caladru. ‘We will remain at a courteous distance, Lady Josie, in readiness should you require anything further.’

‘Thank you very much, your majesty,’ said Josie.

‘It has been our Honour, my Lady,’ said Prince Caladru, and he withdrew in a stately fashion, most of his clan following in disorder very like children dismissed from a school assembly. One only drew closer to Josie, and she was sure this was Radamatha, who had spoken before with the mellow golden voice. When she was close Josie found that she smelled rather like a sheep. Not unpleasantly, and with a wild deserty something as well; Josie thought of frankincense and myrrh.

‘Thank you for helping me,’ said Josie.

‘I will do what I can,’ said the gazelle with the golden voice. ‘I have seldom spoken with men, and never anyone like you, Lady Josie.’

‘Please, just Josie,’ she said. ‘Lady Josie sounds like someone old and important.’

‘That is fine, Josie,’ said Radamatha. ‘But your proper name is something different again, is it not?”

‘Yes,’ said Josie. ‘My proper name is Josephine Furness. The Furness is from my father’s name.’ She felt she should be encouraging to the young gazelle, so she smiled and said, ‘It is a bit of a mouthful for Arabitha to remember.’

‘A mouthful,’ repeated Radamatha, as if the expression were unfamiliar to her.

‘You are hungry,’ she said abruptly, in quite a different tone. ‘I fear my nephew does not think of such things. Of course it is the right thing to first ask a Daughter of Helen whether she wishes something to eat, and show her where some may be found. If you will come along with me?’

Josie walked along with Radamatha, feeling the first warmth of the sun on her face and hands. It should have felt like a dream, walking with a talking gazelle in another world, but it felt more as if her life in Australia had been the dream. She felt more truly real, more truly alive, than she could remember feeling since she was very young. There were many things she wanted to ask, but she could not decide where to start, and it felt so pleasant just being alive.

‘If you wish, Josie, I can tell you the tale of how Aslan appeared in this place,’ said Radamatha.

The same wild feeling of fear mingled with longing ran through Josie.

‘You see, it is the other story that I know about a Daughter of Helen who came from far away, and this place, and Aslan, who is the one who makes all wonderful and unlikely things happen in this world, and I think it is connected in some way to the story that you are in now. But you don’t know about Aslan.’ Radamatha said this last in the same tone of voice she had used when she had said Josie was hungry.

‘No, I don’t’ said Josie. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know anything at all about this place.’

They stopped so Josie could disentangle her skirts, which had snagged on a thorny bush. ‘I am sorry, Josie’ said Radamatha. ‘I did not think of that. We can go around over here, instead.’

‘Aslan is the great Lion who was there on the day that the world was made,’ said Radamatha. ‘He does not grow older, and he does not die, but only goes away for a time to some other place, and comes back when he is needed again. When the world was made he spoke to the talking animals and set them apart from the other animals, to watch over them and guide them rightly. And he brought from another place the first of the race of Men, King Frank and Queen Helen, to watch over all the talking animals and guide them rightly, in the same way as the talking animals watch over the dumb animals. That is how things are done in the northern countries still. This is a fig tree.’

‘Thank you,’ said Josie. ‘We have figs where I come from.’ She reached into the branches and felt about until her hand closed on a fig, which felt as if it were ripe. She plucked it and brought it to her nose. She had never been particularly fond of figs, but this morning it smelled more delicious than any fruit she had ever had. ‘But things are different here than in the northern countries?’ she asked.

‘All these lands were settled by restless animals and restless men’ said Radamatha. ‘Talking animals and men are few and thinly scattered here, and these lands have always been the refuge of those who do not like being watched over. Here there is no one king to rule over all the Sons of Frank, and most talking animals seek to live in the lands where the Daughters of Helen are not, so that they might suit themselves.’ There was a touch of rueful amusement in her voice as she said this last, as if she knew that the gazelles of the March Plain of Sha bore a little of the blame for the state of affairs she described. ‘The worst of all the men who did not want to be ruled by the Kings of the North once lived north and west of here, beyond the mountains, in a land called Telmar.’

‘Mmhm,’ said Josie, plucking another fig while she chewed the last bite of the first one.

‘The men of Telmar learned how to do evil things that the King would have forbidden them to do; things that Aslan had forbidden their ancestors to do. One of the things they learned was how to make people do what they wanted using magic. Then one of their wizards travelled north to Narnia – that is the land of the Kings whose fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers were all Kings, back to the time of King Frank – and put a spell on a boy there, so that he would leave his home and come away to Telmar after a certain time had passed. I don’t know why the wizard put a spell on the boy to make him want to go away to Telmar. When the boy snuck away to go to Telmar his sister followed him and tried to get him to come back. She talked with him, and fought with him, and though nothing she tried was any use she did not give up but stayed with him, hoping to turn him back. And they came here.’

‘Mmhm’ said Josie.

‘They were very hungry and thirsty when they came here, for it had been a bad summer, and many of the pools on the plain had dried up, and there were even fewer animals and men dwelling in this land than there are today. They ate and drank and recovered their strength, and the girl was trying again to break the spell the wizard had put over her brother when they heard the men of Telmar approaching from the west, and she prepared herself to fight them so that they might not have her brother, and in the proper form of the story is remembered all the things she said then. But when it seemed most hopeless the Lion, Aslan, appeared from the east. He defeated the Men of Telmar and broke the spell over the boy. Then he took the boy and the girl with him into Telmar, and they were with him when he defeated them and turned them all into dumb beasts to punish them for their wickedness. And afterwards the boy was the last king to rule over the south as well as the north, before the men of the south had their own kings, and he had the form of the Lion carved here.’

‘Thank you for telling me the story,’ said Josie. She thought what you have probably thought yourself about similar sorts of stories, that it was in some ways a rather unsatisfactory story, in the way the boy and girl had just gone along without managing to do anything useful until Aslan appeared and fixed everything. ‘But that is what most stories in real life seem to be like,’ she thought to herself. ‘People are dragged along by things that happen to them, and other people who are much more powerful than they are come in at the end and decide whether the ending will be happy or miserable.’

‘I don’t know that the story can have much to do with me, Radamatha. No one persuaded me to come here, and I haven’t followed anyone – I just appeared. And you say that these men of Telmar were defeated long ago, so there doesn’t appear to be any great trouble. Not that I could do anything about it anyway.’

Radamatha took a step closer, close enough that Josie could feel the warmth of her breath.

‘You appearing is not the only thing that has happened,’ said Radamatha. ‘I have not yet told my nephew, but an owl came from the Northeast the night before last and told me that a man of Balan is coming this way – Balan is the place of men where the Kings of the South who are closest to Narnia rule. He is the one whose brother will be ninth of the Kings over Balan if he lives. The owl told me that he has heard of the treasures and secrets of Telmar, and thinks it would be great and heroic to go and find them. Maybe you are supposed to tell him not to.’

‘Maybe,’ said Josie dubiously. ‘Why would he listen to me?’

‘His name is Margis,’ said Radamatha. ‘Margis was also the name of the boy in the story. And I did not tell you the name of the girl in the story – it was Jozfeen.’

‘That is a funny coincidence,’ said Josie slowly, feeling like something with too many legs was crawling on her back.

‘I don’t think it is one of those,’ said Radamatha. ‘It is a wonderful and unlikely thing.’

‘So it is the doing of...’ Josie could not quite bring herself to say the name.

‘Of Aslan, yes. If you wish, Josie, you can tell me more of your story now, but I think you are here because you are meant to speak with this Margis, and persuade him not to go to Telmar, like Jozfeen sought to persuade the other Margis not to go to Telmar.’

‘I will tell you a little about me,’ said Josie. She was still hungry, but she thought she had probably had as many figs as were good for her. She wiped her hands on her skirts in a way that would have gotten her scolded at home and sat down under the fig tree. Radamatha sat down beside her, and Josie told her all about growing up with mother and Gerry in a little town in Western Australia, and Miss Harker at the blind school, and how Ada Plummer – who was a year younger than Josie – was a terrible nuisance but it was hardly an excuse for being so unpleasant back to her. And she told Radamatha about the accident, and how she was being sent away to England to her father over the ocean when she had fallen into this new world.

‘I cannot keep all those countries straight,’ said Radamatha. ‘You have so many of them in your world. And these ships you speak of, that burn stones to move against the wind.’ She made a snorting gazelle gesture of amazement.

‘It already seems so far away,’ said Josie. ‘Like a dream.’ She paused a long time, listening to the birds and the milling gazelles, the wind in the trees, the splash of something in the pool that might have been a frog. The sun was already warm enough that she felt she would be more comfortable in the shade. ‘This is a lovely place,’ she said to Radamatha. ‘I don’t want anything bad to happen to it. I don’t see why it should be me, but I can’t think of any idea that is better than yours. I suppose we have to go and meet this Margis.’

Radamatha got to her feet. ‘Even if I am wrong, Josie, you will be better off among other men, rather than gazelles. The men of Balan are kinder to outsiders than other men of the south. Shall I tell Caladru?’

‘We could go and tell him together,” said Josie. ‘It seems the proper thing to do, somehow.’

So Josie and Radamatha trooped across the meadow and Radamatha told Caladru of their decision in quite a formal way, and Josie did her best to keep up, and there was a discussion in which Caladru decided exactly who would be in the party sent to guide Josie, and what each of them should be responsible for. Josie found it very interesting at the time but it would not be so interesting to put down all the details now. At the end it was decided that Radamatha should stay behind with the herd, but that Josie should go with Murbitha, who liked to listen to Radamatha’s stories and was her apprentice, and Mirinitha, who was very good at finding water and hearing the approach of things that were trying to be quiet, and also two of the young gentleman gazelles, Zadru and Kodoru, who had a way of talking over the top of each other that made it hard for Josie to tell them apart. They were nearly at the age when it was the custom of the gazelles for boys to go off and find their own way in the world and see if they could collect a herd of their own, and they had recently spent a good deal of time wandering off to the northeast – which coincidentally was the direction Margis was said to be coming from - preparing themselves for this journey.

This having been decided the herd dispersed over the meadow by the side of the Lion’s Pool, grazing in a disorderly way, with nobody taking pains anymore to stay politely away from Josie, and most of them coming in close to look at her and ask her questions and see if there was anything useful they could do.

‘There is another tree over here that has something you might want to eat on it,’ said Murbitha, who had a shy sort of voice. ‘You can hold on to me if you like and I will lead you there.’Murbitha was quite nice to hold on to, with fur more like a well-kept dog than a sheep, and the tree which was on the drier edge of the meadow had a lot of leathery low-hanging fruit. ‘I have seen the Sons of Frank break them open,’ said Murbitha. ‘There are juicy things inside.’ Josie did this, and found that there were indeed lots of juicy things inside, stuck together like the little bits of a raspberry with seeds that you could eat. They were very nice indeed. These fruit were pomegranates, which Josie had not had before, and she found them every bit as messy to eat as you did the first time you had them.

Alabitha came eagerly up to Josie and introduced her sisters. ‘We were quarreling yesterday and I ran off by myself, which is how I found you,’ she said. ‘I suppose when they tell the story of how you came here they will tell how I was the first to find you?’

‘I suppose they will,’ said Josie, with a laugh.

‘Your feet are different than they were then,’ said Alabitha.

‘I took off my shoes and stockings,’ said Josie. ‘It is nicer to walk on the grass without them.’ She wiggled her toes to demonstrate.

‘It must be very strange to wear all those things,’ said Alabitha. ‘I don’t think I would like it. Are you going to take off any more?’

‘No,’ said Josie. Though it was almost tempting. Being proper sort of clothes for going to dinner on a liner, they were not at all the most comfortable things to be wearing out of doors on a warm day. ‘I am very used to it,’ said Josie. ‘It should feel very strange to me if I was not wearing them, and I would be horribly embarrassed if anyone else came by. Any other human being, that is. Not to mention sunburned.’

‘I see,’ said Alabitha, still fascinated by Josie’s toes. ‘I know you are looking for good things to eat,’ she said. ‘There are some plants that grow by the water that are very nice.’

‘Please, show me,’ said Josie. These turned out to be things a bit like spring onions that Alabitha and her sisters assured her were extremely tasty, but when Josie ate one she found it much nastier than the nastiest spring onion she had eaten and had to drink rather a lot of water to get the taste out of her mouth. Not everything in this new world was pleasant.

‘I’m sorry, but I don’t think those are food for people like me,’ Josie admitted.

Alabitha was so downcast at this that Josie felt she had to give her a hug, but this turned out to be another difference between humans and gazelles. Alabitha leapt away in a panic of flailing hooves, and then apologised profusely from a safe distance. ‘I am so sorry, Lady Josie, it just felt that I was trapped. I am so sorry. Please forgive me.’

‘It’s quite alright,’ said Josie. ‘I should have asked first.’

Josie felt rather queasy in the afternoon from eating nothing but fruit all day, and sat down to rest in a shady place where she could dabble her feet in the pool. As the shadows grew longer the gazelles drew closer together, and after a while they danced. First the boys and young men, then the girls and young women, and then all of them together, hooves stamping in unison in a completely different way from the heavy thump of horses in harness or the chaotic scramble of a flock of sheep. Then they did something completely different from any of the dumb animals of Josie’s world: a thing she should have expected from their voices, but which came as a complete surprise regardless. They sang. The young lady gazelles began first, and then the young gentlemen joined in with a different theme that ran along beside the first one, and then the older ladies joined in with a slower sort of tune that seemed to carry both of the first two along with it, and finally Caladru added his voice. It was the most beautiful singing Josie had ever heard and she never found the words to describe it properly.

_The turning of day and night_

_Is the maker of events._

_The turning of day and night_

_Is the source of life and death._

_The turning of day and night_

_Is the echo of the song of Creation._

_The turning of day and night_

_Is a soft two-coloured reed,_

_With which That-Which-Is_

_Disguises itself with appearances._

_Fast and free blows the wind of time,_

_But Love itself is a wind that stems all winds._

_In the tale of Love there are times_

_Other than the past, the present and the future;_

_Times for which no names have yet been coined._

_Love is the tune that brings_

_Music to the voice of life._

_Love is the light of life._

_Love is the fire of life._

 

When Josie was starting to doze off the four who were to be her companions trotted up to her. A few of the older gazelles were still softly singing, and the air had the feel of night.

‘We will stay with you from now on until we reach the Sons of Frank,’ said Murbitha and Mirilitha.

‘We will watch over you while you rest, Josie, and you need not fear,’ said Zadru and Kodoru.

‘Thank you all,’ said Josie. And the four gazelles lay down around on four sides, so she was a good deal warmer that night than she had been the night before, and felt safe and comfortable in a way she had not felt since her mother had started having her turns.

 

_[The Gazelle’s song is adapted from lines in ‘The Mosque of Cordoba’, by Muhammad Iqbal]_


	5. The Place Where Nothing Made Sense

There was a noise like the Procurator’s tower flying through the air and crashing into another one just like it, and light in colours Tash could not recognise that made his eyes hurt, and a thunderous wind that was unbearably hot and unbearably cold in turn. Stabbing pain struck Tash first in one place, then in all of them, and he would have shrieked like a baby if he had been able to breathe. Tighter than he had ever held anything, he clung to the silver cord.

Something in Tash mastered the worst of the pain and the worst of the chaos, and it seemed to him then that he was being pulled through places that could not possibly exist and that he could not possibly have imagined, one swiftly being replaced by the next.

It was black in all directions, and very cold filled with distant points of brilliant light, and great metal machines were floating through it while some sort of winged men or beast flew about them; then there was a wilderness of yellow sand that clutched at Tash with a horrible grasping dryness, and a thing like a man made out of marsh worms peering up at him through a dome of green glass; there were mountains of something bitterly cold that cracked and fell into a sea of tumultuous grey froth as he passed; there was a forest of leafless trees under a virulent pink sky, through which hordes of things like flying gnawers chased each other, and when he passed close to one of the trees he saw that it had eyes. Then there was an endless city of bronze, its streets thronged with some kind of four-limbed men who looked almost as if they were made out of polished stone, with a black sky that had the same points of light as the first place he had seen, but dimmer. And then there was a vast plain of brightly-coloured plants, with roughly-hewn stones of great size arranged in innumerable lines and circles on it. He found himself falling towards the middle of one of these and squeezed his eyes shut so he would not see himself hit the ground.

Then the unimaginable din was replaced by silence, and Tash found himself standing in a field. The only sound was the wind, sighing inexorably through the branches of the plants which extended endlessly in every direction. They came up no higher than Tash’s knees, and were a bewildering variety of colours – green, and blue, and golden, and a vivid red, violet, and silver, tumbled together in such a mad profusion that looking at them made him a little queasy. The sky overhead was a deep blue. In one direction something horribly bright was in the sky, far too bright for Tash to look near, let alone at it. The air was warm and had a bitter flavour, and he found himself taking quick shallow breaths of it.

‘I wonder if there is where I am supposed to be,’ thought Tash. He was disturbed to find that he was no longer clutching the silver cord, though he had been holding on to it with all his strength. ‘At least there is no one here doing anything horrid to me.’ Having nothing better to do, he walked towards the nearest of the standing stones, which was about fifty yards away. Up close the stone, though left unshaped and unpolished, was carved all over with what seemed to be proofs of theorems in geometry.

‘What a curious thing to do,’ thought Tash, forgetting to worry about the loss of the silver cord or what would become of him in this strange landscape, and peering at the theorems. It seemed to him, though he was not quite sure, that if he looked away from one and then looked back at again it was a different theorem the second time. Yes, he was almost quite sure. He looked away and looked back at one particular theorem a fourth time. He did not look at it a fifth time, because his attention was distracted by a long note from something like a horn sounding in the distance. He headed off in the direction of the sound to find what might be making it.

Before too long Tash could hear other sounds, the sounds of a group of men approaching him, and he could see them coming across the meadow. They were almost like thalarka, but not quite: they were more feathered, and taller, and Tash had the feeling that without their feathers they would be quite a skinny sort of people. Their feathers were the most beautiful things Tash had yet seen - they had the opalescent quality of looking different colours from different directions and glittered impressively in the bright light. Tash felt drab and grey beside them. There were somewhere between a dozen and a score of them, and they were in a hurry. They all had bright red eyes.

‘Are you the inscrutable powers?’ asked Tash hopefully. This did not seem to be such an unpleasant place, and these people did not seem so very unpleasant.

‘This is the one,’ said one of the men. Several of the others threw a large net over Tash.

There did not seem to be any point in struggling with these men, who were very strong, so he meekly let himself be tied up. Up close, they seemed to come in two kinds: one slightly taller, who wore belts as thickly encrusted with jewels as any of the priests Tash had seen in the Procurator’s tower, and one slightly shorter, who wore collars of some drab metal.

‘No wonder the lines were tangled,’ said one of the tallest of the men, coming up to examine Tash closely once he was safely tied up. ‘This one has not even been attuned. Hzghra!’ Tash was not sure at first if this last word was a curse, or somebody’s name, but decided it was a name when one of the shorter ones hurried up. It leaned in close to Tash and examined the hand he had been holding the cord in, then jabbed it without warning with a sharp metal object.

‘Ow!’ said Tash.

‘This one is attuned to Gith-Khash, but only weakly,’ said the shorter man. ‘It has not come completely unattached.’

‘Bring this one to the sorting chamber,’ said the tall thalarka-like man who had said that Tash had not even been attuned. ‘Nine and Ninety Transparent Godlings, what a tangle.’ The men seemed to say something in the same kind of voice, an impatient way of talking with a whistle in it that made it impossible to tell whether they were really irritated or not. Maybe they were all always irritated.

For the first time one of the opalescent thalarka addressed Tash directly. It was the one who had stabbed his hand, and what it said was ‘Do not be very alarmed’.

‘I will try not to be,’ he assured the creature.

Several of the opalescent thalarka-like men picked Tash up then – he had been trussed into a bundle convenient for carrying – and carried him briskly off across the meadow.

‘What purpose do you serve?’ one of the taller ones asked Tash.

‘I don’t know,’ said Tash.

‘Do you know what sphere you originate from?’

‘No,’ said Tash. He would have bowed his head and let his arms droop if he had not been tied up. It occurred to Tash that perhaps the old thalarka who had sent him here did not know what he was doing as well as he thought he did.

Tash was carried to a circle of standing stones, in the centre of which the grass and flowers had been trampled down to packed earth. In the centre of this was what appeared at first to be a pool of water, but as they drew closer it became apparent it was a hole in time and space, like Tash had seen the gnawers make. Instead of just ending, it was bounded neatly with stones. Tash was not very alarmed until it became evident that the almost-thalarka were going to toss him into it; then he did become very alarmed, but he was tied up too tightly to do anything about it.

He flew through the air. There was a very brief tingling and pain as he fell into the void, and then he found himself in a large round stone room. There were some dozens of the thalarka-like men in it, but it was large enough that there was plenty of room between them. Around the edge were any number of intricate clockwork gadgets, and the walls were covered with carved images – of theorems in geometry, but also of machines, and buildings, and different kinds of men – that were most certainly moving as Tash looked at them. At the centre of the room was a vertical hole into the void, made somehow into the sides of a triangular block of black stone that slowly turned around. Tash supposed he had got from there to the edge of the room somehow; and also had been untied, since he was standing up and unbound. Some time seemed to be missing from his life, and one of his shoulders stung as if something had bitten it. He rubbed it and this seemed to help a little.

The shortest of the thalarka-like creatures he had yet seen, barely taller than Tash himself, was standing in front of him, holding out a cone with something green in it.

‘What is it?’ asked Tash.

‘Lime ice,’ said the man.

‘Thank you,’ said Tash, sniffing it curiously. It seemed like the kind of thing you could eat, but had no odour of vinegar to it at all.

‘What is this place?’ Tash asked the man who had given him the lime ice.

‘This is the sorting chamber,’ the short almost-thalarka said proudly.

‘What will you do with me?’

‘We will untangle your line from the other lines you have been entangled with, and sort you.’

‘Oh,’ said Tash, understanding this as well as he had understood anything else in this place where nothing made sense.

‘Please,’ said the man. It gestured that Tash should stand someplace other than where he was standing, and he went to the place indicated. It was marked off from the rest of the room with a kind of rope strung between poles, and contained a number of things that looked like they were made to be sat on, though neither of the creatures already there were sitting down. They were peculiar sorts of things. They did not come up much above Tash’s knees, and were evidently the same kind of creature, though they were dressed very differently and the tufts of fibrous material coming out of their heads were different colours and arranged in different ways. Like the feathered men, they had two arms and two legs, and flat sorts of faces with two eyes. One of them had something sticky and glistening on its face, and was making noises that sounded distressed. The other was eating lime ice out of a paper cone and rubbing its shoulder. As Tash approached, the one who was making the distressed noises looked at him and became more distressed, while the other one’s eyes went very wide.

‘What manner of creature are you?’ asked the short pasty creature with the lime ice. ‘I have not seen your like before.’ It was wearing a single black garment that was tied around its middle with a belt and came down to a little below where its knees ought to be.

‘I am a thalarka,’ said Tash, feeling an unworthy satisfaction at being the cause of mystification in someone else for a change.

The creature stared back at Tash in a way that made him uncomfortable. It nodded slowly, and took a bite of its lime ice. It took large, quick bites, as if it was used to eating rarely and in a hurry. ‘I am a human being,’ it said. ‘They call me Number Five Girl, but I call myself Nera.’

‘They call me Tash and I call myself that too,’ said Tash. The other creature that he supposed must be a human being too was slowly making quieter and quieter distressed noises, and rubbing its sticky face. It was wearing complicated garments with tubes around its legs and what seemed to be two or three layers of stuff covering its arms and chest.

‘I don’t know that one’s name,’ said the human being who called herself Nera. ‘I think he comes from somewhere nice.’

Tash nodded. He would be very distressed as well, if he had come to this strange place from somewhere nice. He took a bite of the lime ice and found it to be very cold, disconcertingly crunchy, and overwhelming in its sweetness, but nevertheless very pleasant.

‘It is like eating snow, isn’t it?’ asked Nera, in a somewhat more friendly tone befitting the camaraderie of fellow lime-ice eaters.

‘I don’t know,’ said Tash. He did not want to admit that he did not know what snow was, so he did not inquire. ‘How is it that we can understand each other?’ he asked. ‘I am bad at understanding women’s language at home.’

Nera shrugged her shoulders. ‘Magic?’ she suggested.

‘What are you doing here?’ Tash asked.

‘My masters,’ said Nera. ‘Put me through to try and swap me with somebody from the other world. That one there who’s crying, I suppose. But we didn’t end up in each other’s worlds, we both ended up here. The bird people said something about our line being tangled up in some other line. My guess is that something went wrong.’ She crumpled up her empty paper cone and let it drop to the floor.

‘I think that might have been me,’ said Tash. ‘They said something about lines being tangled to me, too.’

‘And what are you doing here?’ asked Nera. She had very piercing sorts of eyes.

‘Someone just... sent me here,’ said Tash. ‘I don’t know why.’

Nera nodded in sympathy. ‘It’s pretty bad where you come from, isn’t it?’

Tash nodded in return.

‘What do they call you?’ Nera asked the other small human being, who was just coming to an end of crying in a series of long stuttering sobs. But Tash never found out what it was called, because just then a large group of the thalarka-like men trooped back in, which set it off crying again. The group split into three groups, circled on each of the displaced travellers.

A single very tall man who wore a white crystal between its eyes addressed them.

‘There is no need to exhibit distress. You will soon all be returned to the correct spheres. At the moment we are making the final adjustments to the binding incantations, and the trajectories to return you to your points of translocation will be immanentised very shortly.’

‘Are you sending us back where we came from?’ asked Tash, uneasily.

‘Yes,’ said the very tall man. ‘Send this one first,’ he said, indicating the sticky-faced human who was making all the noise.

‘No!’ said Tash. He could not bear being sent back to the old thalarka and the gnawers, to the dark labyrinth, the watchful eye of the Overlord and the near certainty of being sacrificed. ‘No!’ He threw his arms in the air, losing grip on his lime ice, and broke free of the knot of men surrounding him.

‘You must be patient,’ said the man who wore the white stone, exasperated. ‘The trajectory immanentisations are not yet complete.’

‘I’m not going back,’ cried Tash. ‘I’m not, I’m not, I’m not!’ He dashed in random directions like a small mire-beast on the road that loses its wits when a cart approaches. The thalarka-like men were hurrying towards him from all over the room now, surrounding him, closing in on him.

‘The portal,’ said Nera, who had somehow broken away from her own group of watchers and was suddenly there at his side.

‘The portal,’ cried Tash, running toward it. If they were sending the crying one first, than the portal ought to lead to its world, surely, the one that was nice.

‘Stop! It is perilous!’ called one of the men. Nera, with her short legs, could not keep up with Tash, and the almost-thalarka blocked her way, but Tash was inspired by a sudden rush of heroism. Knocking one of the men sprawling – they were strong, but they were not heavy when you got them by surprise, he thought – he swept Nera up in his arms and hurled them both at the hole in space and time.

‘Nine and Ninety-' the very tall thalarka-like man who seemed to be in charge began saying. Its words were cut off by the chaos of the void.


	6. Josie Travels a Good Long Way

There were only two irritating things about the next few days. First, the gazelles were all much swifter than Josie and did not find it easy to slow themselves down, so they spent a good deal of the time darting off ahead or to the side on extra journeys. Even Murbitha, who made a point of keeping close by Josie at all times, had a disconcerting habit of walking in circles around her as they talked. They could not help it, she knew: they were just a different kind of creature. But their swiftness made her feel very slow and lumpish and irritable. The other irritating thing was that she did not have anything to carry water in, and while the gazelles had no trouble at all going without a drink for a whole day between waterholes, the time between drinks was much longer than Josie had ever been used to out of doors and she finished every day thirsty and sore in the head. She asked Murbitha about gourds, but it was the wrong time of year to find dry ones, and digging out the middle of a rock-hard pumpkin a bit smaller than her fist with a sharp stick made a very unsatisfactory canteen.

On the other hand, Josie felt herself growing stronger each day. She would not have dreamed that she could spend all day walking in the sun and awake each morning feeling able to get up and do it again. After a few unpleasantnesses her digestion had adjusted to eating almost nothing but fruit. She had a goal to work toward, and did not think about what would happen after they met up with Margis and the men, nor did she often worry about those she had left behind on her own world. The land they walked over was flat, with soft grass underfoot and hardly any fallen logs to trip over, and the gazelles were excellent company when they were not wandering off. Mirilitha told her the names of the stars, and Murbitha told her stories of the doings of Caladru’s people since they had first come to the March Plain of Sha, and Zadru and Kodoru told her what bird made what sound, and what plant was good for what ailment. They were a gossipy people, and what they loved to talk about best was what other gazelles who were not there were doing, so they all enjoyed being away from the tribe for this reason. Josie learned much more than she needed to about which of Caladru’s wives was in favour, and which ones spoilt their children the worst, and who was sneaking off to meet whom.

At night they always sang. Usually Murbitha only sang a little, and then Mirilitha and the two young gentleman gazelles sung in turn. When Josie first listened carefully to the words, she felt her cheeks grow hot. ‘Are they courting her?’ she whispered to Murbitha.

‘Not in a serious way,’ the gazelle replied. ‘They will get in each other’s way too much for anything dangerous to happen. Even so, if Mirilitha does not foal we will pretend not to notice.’

‘Oh,’ said Josie, blushing more strongly.

‘Properly, our herd is too large, Josie. When Radamatha was my age it was three or four smaller herds that only met at festivals. But Caladru will not hear of it. So his hold has to be looser than it should be, to keep the young males from challenging him.’

Josie thought for a moment. ‘So... when you are of age, you all marry Caladru?’

‘Yes,’ said Murbitha. ‘I have been with the Prince already, so it would be a greater insult for Kodoru or Zadru to court me. But Mirilitha has not.’

‘But you were standing with the young ladies, when you were all together,’ said Murbitha. ‘I thought it was just the older ones with the children who were Caladru’s wives.’

‘And when I bear a child, then I will stand with them,’ said Murbitha. ‘That is how it is done. But I do not intend to for some years yet.’

‘I don’t quite understand,’ said Josie.

‘Radamatha says I should learn all that she knows before I am distracted with a foal. I cannot refuse the Prince, but if I feel stirrings within me, there is a plant with white hairs on the leaves that I can eat. Radamatha showed me where it grows, in the shady hollows on rocky ground.’

Josie felt a strange prickling at the back of her neck, like she too was a leaf covered with white hairs. ‘I don’t like to think of such things,’ she said.

‘You should, though,’ said Murbitha. ‘You are going to dwell among the Sons of Frank. Their ways are not so different from ours.’

 

The next day they were met by a pair of talking rock-badgers – ‘Hyraxes, if you please,’ they said when they introduced themselves. Their voices were deeper than Josie would have expected for creatures of their size.

“We heard there was a Daughter of Helen abroad in the land, and Tabsoon and I thought we should come and pay our respects,” said Shafana, the lady hyrax. She stood comfortably on her hind legs and came up to Josie’s navel. Her husband stood a few paces behind and to the side, leaning against a tree. “Yes, when I heard from Ofrak the owl, I told Shafana, here’s a chance that won’t come again soon, we should put a basket together and give the Lady a proper welcome.’

‘Thank you very much,’ said Josie, taking the basket Shafana offered.

‘We reckoned you would be tired of eating grass, travelling with the Sons of Tsvi and Daughters of Tsviah, fine folk as they are,’ said Tabsoon.

‘We hope you like it,’ said Shafana.

Josie felt through the basket and found she liked enough of it to manage quite a cheerful reply. There were some small freshly killed lizards in it, and also rather a lot of grubs, and some twisted roots that seemed quite unlike food; but also some quite recognisable onions and a great many nuts and seeds that would doubtless be very tasty.

‘It is just what I wanted,’ said Josie politely. The two hyraxes beamed with pleasure.

‘The nutmegs are just there for flavouring the grubs,’ said Shafana. ‘You mustn’t try to eat them whole.’

‘Did Ofrak speak to you of the other men, my good hyraxes?’ asked Murbitha.

‘She said they were still about two days man-walk off, camped at the stone thing made by the old King,’ said Tabsoon. ‘It looked like they might be there a while. I suppose men like to hang about man things.’

‘It is good that they are staying still,’ said Murbitha. ‘It will make it easier to catch up with them.’

‘Yes,’ said Josie, uncertainly.

‘We thank you for everything, but we should really get going – it is a long way to the next waterhole,’ said Murbitha.

‘Yes, I suppose we must,’ said Josie. ‘Thank you again.’

‘We wish you a very good journey, my Lady,’ said Shafana. ‘I hope you will end up somewhere pleasant soon, and not have to travel again.’

‘Yes, my Lady,’ said Tabsoon. ‘Travelling is terrible hard work, and we never do it if we can.’ Josie thought there might have been just a tinge of disapproval in his voice, as if he thought the proverbially wandering gazelles had dragged her off on a long trip for no particularly good reason.

‘I am in good company,’ said Josie. ‘And your gifts will make my trip more comfortable. But I am afraid I still have a very long way to go.’

‘Do not be afraid, daughter of Helen,’ said Shafana, misunderstanding her. ‘Every journey has its ending, and you’re among friends in this country.’

Josie smiled. ‘Yes, you’re quite right. Everyone here has been very good to me.’

 

The next day was the warmest yet, with another long walk across a dusty plain to water, and Josie was thoroughly miserable when they got there. ‘Look on the bright side, Josie,’ she told herself. ‘Tomorrow you will be among human beings again.’ It did not seem very like a bright side, despite the promise of warm food, blankets, and someone who might be able to fix her shoe. Friendly talking animals were one thing; but a party of strange foreign men were a different thing entirely. Especially if what Murbitha had implied was true, and the Prince of the humans of Balan was anything like the Prince of gazelles. She was not old enough to worry about such things in Australia; but even in her own world some foreigners married their women off at an ungodly age.

‘Well, look on the other bright side,’ she told herself, trying again. ‘There is a proper deep pool here, not just a muddy puddle, so you can have a wash and clean your clothes and be something like a presentable human being when you meet the Prince tomorrow. Your hair will still be a ghastly mess, of course, but there is no help for that.’

You probably know how you can go on and on wearing the same sweaty clothes day after day if you are busy without noticing, and also how good it feels to finally get out of them and get clean again. Josie gave her clothes a good rinse in the pool, wrung them out, and hung them up to dry on a few bushes. It was a pool in a shady spot and was still very cold, so that she could not quite get used to it after being in it for a few minutes, even though she did her usual habit of plunging her whole self under the water at once to get in. Josie would not have called the bottom of the pool pebbly, exactly; it was stones, some of them rather sharp, that were covered with slimy growing things, so after she had given herself a quick scrub all over she trod water and floated on her back in turns.

‘It is a luxury to be cold, on a day like this,’ she told herself. But it was not a luxury she found she could enjoy very long. So before her clothes had gotten anything like dry, she got dressed and returned to the gazelles. As she approached she heard they were quarrelling and he hung back, not wanting to intrude. They seemed to be quarrelling about her.

‘I know what Radamatha said, Murbitha,’ Mirilitha was saying. ‘What I am saying that Radamatha is wrong.’

‘So you would have her live with us for how long? Doing what?’

‘As long as it takes. If Aslan meant her to help the men, she would have appeared among the men. But she appeared among us. It has to be a sign.’

‘Radamatha...’

‘Radamatha’s wits are as dry as her udders.’

‘Who are you to talk, Mirilitha? You are hardly weaned!’

‘Peace, peace,’ interrupted Kodoru and Zadru.

‘Oh, it’s very well for you to say ‘peace’, but I am right and she is wrong, and how can there be peace between wrong and right?’ said Mirilitha indignantly.

The musical voices of the gazelles always became much more bleating and goatlike when they quarelled. Josie sighed and turned away. Breaking off a switch from one of the little willows that grew by the side of the pool, she felt her way cautiously in the opposite direction. This was the most pleasant place they had come to since the Lion’s Pool, but there was no broad meadow next to it with fruiting trees, only a plain of dry grass that cracked beneath her feet. She would go for a walk, just a little walk, and maybe by the time she came back they would have finished arguing about her. She walked into the wind, and their voices soon faded.

There had been quarrelling about what to do with her at home, too, after the accident, Josie remembered bitterly. She did not like reliving the memory, and tried to squash it down. She walked on a bit further, swinging her switch wildly in front of her.

Then she heard the flapping: a sudden flapping of very large wings, coming from what seemed to be straight above her head.

‘Josie!’ a gazelle called from the distance. Had she really walked that far?

‘Murbitha!’ she called back, as the flapping grew louder. At that moment hands reached out of the air and grabbed her arms. ‘Help me!’ The hands dragged her up into the sky as if she were a paper doll. Other hands grabbed her ankles, and the air rushed past her in what seemed a gale, whipping her cries away. Voices of gazelles crying out for her were dim and panicked in the distance. Josie twisted and bucked to try and free herself, but the hands held her as if they were made of steel.

‘Do you want us to drop you, little girl?’ said a voice. It was not a pleasant voice. ‘You would break into a thousand pieces. Be still.’

Evil-sounding laughter sounded around her. ‘Do you remember how the doe squealed, Eber?’ The one who spoke let go of her ankle for an instant, then snatched it out of the air again.

‘And the rabbits – don’t forget the rabbits!’ said the one at her other ankle.

‘This one is very soft,’ said the ankle-dropper, kneading her calf nastily with another hand. The hands of the things were dry and hot – not hot enough to burn, but far warmer than any living thing Josie had ever touched. Her arms and legs were pulled out painfully to the corners of a square, as if she was about to be torn apart by wild horses, and the creatures were carrying her almost flat, so that he head was only just above the level of her feet.

‘It is a long time since we caught a man,’ said one of her captors.

‘This is the sort called woman,’ said another one.

‘It will not be long until the next one,’ said the first one who spoke, the one who was called Eber. ‘This is the one the master has been waiting for. I can feel it in my marrow.’

‘Very soft, and very white,’ said the ankle-dropper with the wandering hand. ‘And it flaps too much.’ Josie’s skirts were whipping about in the wind, hard enough to sting when they struck her.

‘Where are you taking me?’ asked Josie. The wind buffeting her face made it hard to talk.

‘You will see soon enough,’ said Eber. ‘Don’t worry, little girl, we will leave those whining goats far behind.’

‘I thought the one the master is waiting for would be taller,’ said the one who had pointed out that Josie was a woman.

‘I can feel it in my marrow,’ said Eber, in a voice that was very unpleasant indeed. ‘This is the one.’

‘Be brave’, Josie told herself. ‘Not long ago you thought you were going to be drowned, and that turned out okay.’ She was growing cold, despite the heat radiating from her captors. They seemed too warm to be any natural kind of creature. Their hands felt near enough human hands, but she did not like to think what the rest of them would be like.

Josie’s ears were starting to hurt with the wind, and she let it blow the coarse conversation of the creatures away unmeaning, trying to will time to pass quickly. It grew colder and colder. She ached terribly all over. She was carried through the air until she could not take it any longer, and then she screamed and cursed at the creatures carrying her. They only laughed at her, and flew on, and on, and on.

 

The wind finally stopped, and Josie was somewhere much warmer, and then she was dropped onto what seemed to be a carpet. She struggled up onto her hands and knees, but could neither stand nor sit because of the shooting pains in her limbs. Her ears ached horribly, and her head ached horribly, and her lips were chapped, and she was horribly thirsty. She had only ever been so miserable once before, when she had been very sick.

Josie could hear the crackling of a wood fire, and smell roast pork and a nasty sort of perfume. The creatures who had carried her were still nearby, but they had stopped their gibing and seemed to be standing quietly, like they were expected to be on their best behaviour.

‘Now, aren’t you a picture?’ said a voice. If the inhuman voices of the flying creatures had been unpleasant, this voice was even more unpleasant for being human. It was the voice of a man who used it mainly for giving orders to things that were not men, and for cursing to himself when things went awry – never for anything courteous or friendly. It was a voice that was trying to be friendly and courteous now, and the strain it put on it was painful. Josie tried to say something back, but coughed instead.

‘Put her in a chair,’ commanded the voice, and Josie was picked up again by two of the flying creatures and put in an upholstered chair.

‘You have come here from another world, yes?’ asked the man’s voice, drawing closer to her. The nasty perfume seemed to hang more thickly around the voice.

Josie was in no mood to be polite and answer questions. ‘Who are you?’ she said angrily. ‘Where is this?’

‘I am Yustus, the last man in Telmar,’ said the voice, with a pride that would have sounded rather grand if it was not at the same time so bitter and cheerless. ‘And this is – was - Telmar, the jewel of the South.’


	7. Tash is Turned to Stone

If anything it was worse than the first time Tash had fallen into the void. Lights burned Tash’s eyes, unnameable sounds deafened him, and he felt like he was being torn apart. He and Nera tumbled through what seemed like a hurricane of blowing stones, then a fog that burned the skin, then a waterfall of something like lime ice seething with angry biting creatures. Tash clutched on to Nera with all his strength. There was darkness, and more burning, and cold, and light again. The pain seemed to go on for an age of the world

‘It will end, it will end, it will end,’ cried Tash. But he could not hear his own words.

Something heavy struck Tash and he found himself sprawled across it. It was stone. A stone floor. He had lost his grip on Nera. It was not at all silent: there were voices, making sounds that Tash could not think into words, and other sounds – the crackling of a fire, the crash of something glass falling to the floor. The air smelled almost pleasant, with smoke and aromatic oils and a vaguely animal smell he did not recognise. Tash got to his knees dizzily and looked about for Nera.

‘It is Number Five back,’ said an irritable human voice. ‘She seems to be dead.’

‘By the Lion’s arsehole!’ said another angry voice. ‘She had better not be. We don’t have any more children to spare.’

Two human beings, taller than Nera, dressed in similar black garments, had come up and were standing over a broken thing that lay about a dozen feet from Tash. A liquid much the same colour as the stones the priests wore in the tower of the Overlord was leaking from it.

‘No,’ said Tash. ‘No…’ He stumbled miserably toward the body. What had happened? He had held her so tightly. It must have been a sharp stone in the storm of sharp stones, striking her there. No, no, no. This was not how it was supposed to be.

‘What is that thing?’ said one of the human beings, looking at Tash as if he had not been visible until that moment. It was alarmed, but nothing like as alarmed as you or I would be if a creature like Tash appeared unexpectedly.

The other snapped its head up to look at Tash. ‘I have no idea. Do you think it killed Number Five?’

Some of the red liquid was on Tash’s hands. Nera’s blood. He was bleeding himself, from several little cuts. He stood up to his full height, which hurt. ‘I was trying to save her,’ he said pathetically.

‘Well, that does not appear to have been a success,’ said the human who had first noticed Tash. It came up to Tash’s bottom pair of shoulders, and had fibrous material around the front of its face as well as on top. ‘We could find you another one, if it is particularly important.’

Tash shuffled forward to Nera, paying no further attention to the larger human beings, and crouched down beside her. She was not breathing. Rather a lot of blood had spilled out onto the floor from the hole in her neck. No, this was not how it was supposed to be at all. He was supposed to be a hero. ‘No,’ he said. He struck his head with his hands, again and again.

When Tash did not reply, the human with the fibrous stuff on its face spoke more softly to the other, who looked something like a larger version of Nera. ‘Zara, probably best to get the wand, just in case.’

Then he addressed Tash more loudly, ‘What is your will, Dread Creature of Nightmare?’

Tash paid it no attention.

‘If you have any knowledge of the Elder Magics, we may well be able to come to some mutually beneficial arrangement.’

Tash struck his head with his hands again.

‘Where have you come from?’

Again Tash said nothing, crouching miserably by Nera’s side.

‘Bah!’ said the human. ‘Good, there you are, Zara. I don’t think this thing is dangerous. Or particularly powerful. But it does look like it will cause trouble. I think we should petrify it for now, and we can figure out what to with it later.’

‘I agree, Zymung.’

Tash learned then that petrification is not instantaneous, and that one ceases to be able to move or see quite a while before one stops hearing things. He had his face hidden in his hands, but he still saw a flash of white, and felt a painful throbbing noise that seemed to be only in his head.

‘When Yustus comes back with the apples, I am sure he will have some good ideas about what to do with this unexpected monster,’ said Zara.

‘Of course you do’ said Zymung. ‘You always think Yustus has good ideas. You would be happy to see Yustus as master over us all, I am sure. But he is just one voice, and nearly the youngest.’

‘The fact that he is young does not make him wrong,’ said Zara, with a sharpness that reminded Tash of his mothers.

‘You should use your understanding with him to make him understand his place, instead of encouraging him in his ambitions.’

‘I hardly think you are in a position to be giving anyone advice, Zymung.’

…

‘It is too bad about Number Five. I really thought it would work this time.’

…

‘Yustus should watch himself’

…

…

‘Apples’

And then Tash’s ears were turned completely to stone, and he knew nothing.


	8. Mostly Concerning the Evil Magician

Yustus’ room was warm and comfortable after Josie’s painful journey through the skies, but it had a feeling of menace to it, the feel of a place where terrible things had happened once and might well happen again. How she could tell this from the smell and the sounds of the room and the feel of the upholstery against her hands, Josie could not say, but she knew it to be true as clearly as she could tell wool and eggshell apart.

‘Why have you brought me here?’ Josie asked the evil magician. She coughed.

‘Because, I heard that you had come here from another world. Bring her something to drink,’ Yustus commanded, and an enamelled cup filled with some sort of fruit cordial was almost instantly pressed into her hands. It smelled pleasant, but Josie did not drink it immediately. ‘There is something that only someone from another world can help me with. Something I have been working on for a long time.’

‘What is that?’ asked Josie.

‘We have plenty of time to explain the details,’ said Yustus. ‘All the time in the world. I would not concern yourself with that now. Have you indeed come from another world?’

Josie considered refusing to answer Yustus’ questions, but instantly discarded the idea. He seemed quite capable of being very nasty to her, and had answered her questions so far - after a fashion – so there would be a kind of injustice in not answering his. ‘Yes,’ she said. She coughed again.

‘Drink, drink, you silly child,’ said Yustus. ‘How can you talk when you are coughing all the time?’

Josie had been at school enough to get accustomed to obeying orders from unpleasant people, so took a drink of the cordial. It was made of some citrus fruit she did not quite recognise, and nice enough that she very quickly drank it all without noticing.

‘Have you come here with any brothers? Perhaps a male cousin? A fiance?’

‘No,’ said Josie. ‘I am alone.’

‘Whyever do you keep your eyes shut, child?’ said Yustus impatiently.’ Have a look around you at the glory that was Telmar.’

‘She is blind, Master,’ said Eber’s voice, as Josie was opening her mouth to say the same thing.

‘Blind? Fool among ifrits, why did you not tell me this at once?’ The brittle mask of friendliness fell from Yustus’ voice.

‘I crave your pardon, Master,’ said Eber, in an tone of oily subservience that Josie could tell hid contempt for the human who had somehow gained power over him. ‘It seemed that you wished to speak with the child at once, and I did not wish to interrupt.’

‘Bah!’ said Yustus. ‘Is what this fool among ifrits tells me the truth, child?’

‘Yes,’ said Josie.

‘Well, that is a problem.’ He paced back and forth. ‘It would be better if you were a man, but there is no shame in that; after all, the Queen-that-was-is-and-shall-be is a woman. I expect that will be quite interesting. But the blindness, that is another matter. A serious one.’ Back and forth the man paced, his boots striking the floor emphatically. ‘There will be a way around it. A magic. There always is something. Yes, I remember reading about artefacts for such things. Enchanted jewels. It can be done. I will do it. It will just take some time and preparation. We have all the time in the world.’

Josie had not really felt scared of the Master of the ifrits before; she had been too glad not to be manhandled through the air any more, and more angry than afraid. But what he was saying now frightened her.

‘What do you mean?’ she asked.

‘I was going to keep it a surprise,’ said Yustus petulantly. ‘We have plenty of time. But no matter. There is no harm in telling you. There are things that only a body that has come from outside this world can do: very important things. Things I have been waiting a very long time to do. So we are going to swap. I will have your body, and you will have mine.’

‘That’s not possible,’ said Josie, trying to keep her voice steady.

‘Oh, it is,’ said Yustus, sounding very pleased with himself. ‘No one else has done it, but I have done it. This is not my first body. Nor my second.’ He laughed.

Josie could not think of anything else to say. She concentrated very hard on being brave and thought of the kindly voices of the rock-badgers and the gazelles. She thought of Aslan, who seemed to show up at the end of stories in this world and make things alright. She tried to pray to the God of her own world, who used to show up in stories thousands of years ago, but the words got tumbled and tangled together in her head.

‘You can tell me more of your world later, child,’ said Yustus. ‘I will be interested to hear of it. But now, I have much to do. Take her away.’

‘Yes, Master,’ said a chorus of ifrits.

‘You’re not going to fly for miles and miles again, are you?’ Josie asked, as the gigantic over-warm hands of the ifrits pulled her not ungently up from her chair.

‘Many leagues,’ said one of the ifrits.

‘As many as there are grains of sand in the desert,’ said another, with an evil laugh.

‘Do not listen to them,’ said Eber. ‘It is not far.’

It was a very short trip and seemed to be mostly up. The night air was blessedly free of Yustus’ nasty perfume, but the room she was brought into next was even thicker with the same kind of smells.

‘Zardeenah, here is the man who has come from the other world,’ said Eber.

‘Indeed,’ said a voice that could only belong to a lady ifrit. It was a voice like wild honey and the fancy cream soups they served on board the steamship and was not at all kind, not exactly, but from the very first word Josie felt it to be more trustworthy than the other ifrits. ‘I am called Zardeenah, girl. What are you called?’

‘Miss Furness,’ said Josie. She felt a strong urge to call this lady ifrit, ‘Ma’am’ and struggled against it on principle.

‘It is a well-fashioned name,’ said Zardeenah. ‘You may go,’ she said to the ifrits who had brought Josie, and they departed in a great flurry of wings.

‘You have had an arduous journey,’ Zardeenah went on. ‘You must be tired, and hungry, and you appear very disorderly.’

‘Yes,’ said Josie. ‘I have been dragged about from world to world and place to place like a – I don’t know. Nothing makes sense, and everything here is so horrible.’ She had not meant to say so much.

‘Now, now,’ said Zardeenah. ‘We will do one thing at a time, and the first is to see you properly settled.’

Zardeenah led Josie to a low table and sat her down on a cushion, and there were pleasant things to eat and drink: much more of the fruit cordial she had before, and pomegranate juice, and the sorts of human food she had not had for some days; a great slab of roast pork, bread and olives and pickled turnips, a kind of toasted cheese that was very nice indeed, and to finish off, pastries that were sticky with honey. Josie was hungry, and ate a great deal.

‘Now to deal with your hair,’ said Zardeenah. A hot bath had been run somehow close at hand while Josie had been eating, in a vast stone tub that made sense when Josie thought of how large the ifrits seemed to be. Zardeenah washed Josie’s hair, and then combed some kind of strong-smelling oil through it. She had quite a skill at untangling hair, Josie thought; it was getting done much quicker than she had thought it would be after her days sleeping out of doors, without any matted places having to be cut out or painfully pulled apart.

‘That man – that magician – wants to swap bodies with me,’ said Josie.

‘I know,’ said Zardeenah. ‘He is our master, and we cannot go against his wishes. But we do not have to approve of everything he does.’ Whether Zardeenah was really kindly, or was just artfully pretending kindliness, had ceased to matter to Josie.

‘Has he really done it before?’ asked Josie.

‘Yes, Miss Furness,’ said the ifrit. ‘Once in my time, and twice in the time of my mother before me. The body he is in now is the body of a brigand who killed a man and ran away over the mountains to avoid the revenge of the man’s family. Better for him that he had suffered it!’

‘I have to get away,’ said Josie, fighting back tears.

‘Indeed,’ Zardeenah said. ‘You are lucky that you are blind, or he would have begun the rituals at once. But he will be a long time looking for some magic to restore your eyes, and in that time, who knows what will happen? You may think of something, or an earthquake may level this place, or an ally may turn up for you. Who knows, maybe the Lion will come again?’

‘I guess so,’ said Josie.

‘There, that is done. Now we will get you dressed, and you can sleep.’

‘I don’t think I can possibly sleep,’ said Josie, but in truth she was already feeling relaxed and sleepy from the bath.

Josie’s old clothes from the ship had vanished while she was in the bath, and instead there was a nightdress of some light smooth fabric that smelled strongly of cedar. After wearing the same clothes for day after day and night after night, clothes that were intended for a very different climate, it was very comfortable indeed

‘Probably they are just being nice to me so I won’t try to run away,’ thought Josie to herself. But at the moment there seemed nothing else she could do.

Zardeenah led her to a pile of blankets on the floor – so very soft and comfortable they were, much nicer than meadows, or even her bed on the ship – and she fell asleep nearly at once.

Josie dreamed all night that she was back at school, doing problems in geometry. However long she took to do a problem, it seemed that hardly any time passed, so that she began to despair of the lesson ever ending. When she finally awoke she ached all over from being carried through the air, but not nearly as badly as she thought she would. It was more like the almost comfortable ache you sometimes get after exercise than the screaming pain she had dreaded. It was very comfortable to lie in bed in the morning – or the afternoon, it felt more like an afternoonish kind of warmth – knowing she did not have to get up and go to school. If she had not been the prisoner of an evil magician who wanted to steal her body, and if she had not been separated by an unimaginable gulf of space and time from everyone and everything she had ever known, it would have been perfect.

‘I suppose it makes sense that Yustus would be nice to me,’ she said to herself. ‘He would not want to worry me and make me sick, if he is going to take my body over.’ She tried to think of something more pleasant, but everything she thought kept bringing her back to her present troubles. ‘I was just saying how everyone in this new world had been so kind to me.’ She sighed. ‘And now the gazelles will be worried about me as well, and Murbitha will get in trouble.’

After a while Zardeenah fetched Josie out of bed and made her have breakfast. There was strong and rather gritty coffee that she did not much like, and a kind of flat bread sprinkled with salt and herbs that she did.

‘So you are an ifrit?’ she asked Zardeenah over breakfast.

‘Indeed,’ said Zardeenah.

‘If you will pardon me asking, what is an ifrit exactly?’

‘We are the people of the fire,’ said Zardeenah in a good humour. ‘All things that are fiery delight us; and as the fire rises, so we fly, as you have seen. We ruled these lands before men came, together with the djinn, the people of the air.’

‘I have a feeling I may have heard of you somewhere – in my world they have stories about people like you, who are magical and fly and live in places like this, where there are pomegranates and gazelles.’

‘I am pleased to hear that our fame has spread so far,’ said Zardeenah.

‘In the stories they – the djinns, anyway – are always making deals with men to use their magic that turn out badly for the men.’

‘Would that it were so!’ said Zardeenah. ‘The truth is unfortunately very nearly the other way around. We are forever making deals with men that turn out badly for us.’

‘Come to think of it, some of the stories are like that, too,’ Josie admitted.

‘For instance, my parents had dealings with men that ended with me and all my brothers and sisters slaves to this magician.’ Zardeenah sighed.

‘That’s terrible!’ said Josie. ‘Why would they do such a thing?’

‘At that time they were in trouble, and it was made to seem the easiest way out of their troubles. At times we find the words of men very convincing. Sit still a while longer, and I will comb your hair again.’

‘How many brothers and sisters do you have?’ asked Josie.

‘We were seven; four boys and three girls,’ said Zardeenah. ‘I am the eldest.’

Josie decided it was best not to tell Zardeenah how horrid her brothers were. Perhaps Zardeenah would have been horrid to her as well, if she had not been commanded to be nice. ‘Will I meet your sisters?’ she asked.

‘Alas, no,’ said Zardeenah. ‘Our master sold them.’

‘Oh,’ said Josie. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘When the humans first came to this land, they were nearly all men, and it was said that their honeyed words and earthbound beauty enticed many of our young women away, so that today there is much ifrit and djinn blood in the veins of the men of the south. Then we took ourselves away into the wild places so that we would have little to do with men. But there are still those among the Sons of Frank who desire wives from the daughters of the Efreeti, and if they cannot find them they are not above buying them; them, and the magics that keep them slaves. For my sisters were each enslaved to obey the wearer of a particular ring, and so long as their owners bear their ring they can do nothing that he does not wish them to do.’

‘That’s disgusting,’ said Josie. ‘The men in this land do not seem very chivalrous.’

‘I do not know that word, chivalrous,’ said Zardeenah.

‘I am not surprised,’ said Josie glumly. ‘Why did he not sell you as well?’ she asked.

‘He would if he could, for I would have fetched a better price than my sisters. But he did not dare. I know too many of his secrets, and if I ever had another master I could use them against him. But my sisters did not know many of his secrets. They were young when they were sold. Sharnah was about your age, and Ayeshah a little younger.’

‘That’s terrible,’ said Josie.

‘There - your hair is done,’ said Zardeenah. I will tie it back, and then it will not be too disordered when you are brought to meet the master again.’

The master - that is, the wicked magician Yustus, as we should be in the habit of calling him, not being his ifrit slaves - approved of Josie’s clean hair and Telmarine clothes.

‘Much improved,’ he said to himself, when she was standing in the downstairs chamber like a china doll on display in a cabinet. ‘That is a figure I can see commanding armies. Raise your arms above your head, child.’

Josie saw no reason not to obey this command, and raised her arms.

‘Yes, those will be fine arms for casting incantations. It will take some getting used to, but still, I could do much worse. There will be all the time in the world. You can put them down now. Yes, in your form I will do great things.’

Josie flinched then, for Yustus and the foul perfume that hung about him had suddenly taken a few steps forward, and he had taken her chin in his hands. Now he was prodding at her eyes, quite unpleasantly.

‘There is just the matter of these. Diamonds will be best; yes, diamonds. I will send Eber to the Valley of Fire, there should be suitable stones there.’

Josie twisted her head out of the magician’s hands. ‘I’m not your toy,’ she said. ‘And you’ll never use my body to command armies, or see through diamonds with my face. I’d kill myself first.’

‘No, you won’t,’ said Yustus. He ran his hand gently across her cheek. It was encrusted with stone rings and made her skin crawl, as if it were some loathsome creature you might find living under a rock.

‘We have that much in common,’ said Yustus, as she drew backwards away from him. ‘You have the same hunger for life that I do. I can sense it. And that will keep you hoping until the very last minute; and then it will be too late.’

Josie knew that what he said was true. ‘It’s not true,’ she said. ‘I’m not afraid to die.’

‘You only say that because you know you have no choice,’ said Yusuf, running his fingers through her hair. ‘What if you were not doomed to die, but could live forever?’

‘That’s stupid,’ she said, stepping backward again.

‘Those who are born here are doomed to die,’ he said. ‘The most powerful magics can give youth and strength and length of life, but at the end they will fail. But if a man comes from another world into this – then, O then, there are magics that can make him truly immortal.’

Again he ran her fingers through her hair, and again she took a step backward.

‘Know, child, that at the very uttermost end of the world there is a garden where magic apples grow,’ said Yustus. ‘Magic apples of immortality. When I was young I made a journey of many years to find them and bring them back here. Three of us set forth, and only I returned. I faced countless trials and torments. I doubt there has been any greater journey in the history of the world. I found the apples; I brought them back; but when I returned to Telmar I found that I was alone. My people had been turned into beasts by the magic of the accursed Lion. But he missed me. It was my destiny to escape his anger, and my destiny to keep all the apples for myself.’

‘It’s a pretty pathetic thing to be proud of,’ she said. ‘More likely you were too unimportant to bother with.’

Josie had backed up into a chest of drawers and could back up no further, and this time when Yustus ran his fingers through her hair he gripped it cruelly and pulled her head back. She could feel his nasty hot breath in her face.

‘It was destiny, I tell you. If the Lion did not want me to have the apples, he would have stopped me. And I was not unhappy to find Telmar empty. No, I exulted in it. Why should I have to share my prize? Or have it stolen from me by old fools? Never, little girl, never!’

‘Ow,’ said Josie.

Yustus let her hair go. ‘I still have some of the apples,’ he said. ‘Preserved by my magic for all these years. I will take your body, and then I will eat again, and this time it will not just be youth and strength. This time I will become immortal. I have waited lifetimes for this moment. These are glorious days.’

Josie was very grateful when Yustus at last summoned the ifrits to return her to Zardeenah’s tower.


	9. The Hidden Garden

Tash was stone. Nera’s world turned swiftly around its cheerful yellow sun, and summer followed winter in bewildering succession. Men rose to greatness and built things to last forever, and their grandchildren saw those things wither and fail.

Time does not flow the same way in different worlds, and on the clouded world of the thalarka time sped by yet faster still. While Tash was stone the long rule of the Overlord ended and those who came after her fought one another with evil over-powerful things, and it came to pass that a lifeless grey sea roiled without ceasing over all the places Tash had ever known or heard of before he was cast into the void. But Tash knew nothing, felt nothing, saw nothing.

***

Josie was a prisoner in Telmar for several weeks before she found the door. Yustus was busy researching magics to make her see, and Eber and Jabeth had been sent off to the Valley of Fire, wherever that might be, and were not expected back for some time. (Jabeth was the ifrit who had found it such fun to let her ankle drop in midair.) Ureth and Saleh carried her up and down through the window of the tower on the infrequent occasions Yustus wanted to gloat or make some unpleasant measurement of her face; and Zardeenah provided her with every comfort. She remained friendly, and Josie remained none the wiser as to whether it was true friendliness or a sham. Zardeenah was willing enough to talk, but Josie soon learned the topics about which she could not speak, at the bidding of her master: it was useless to ask any question that might have some bearing on the possible weaknesses of the magician, or a way that Josie might escape. At night she often heard the howling of wild dogs in the lands beyond, and Zardeenah said that these were ones descended from the men of Telmar, who Aslan had turned into beasts.

‘I rather hope the gazelles don’t manage to persuade this Prince Margis not to come here,’ Josie thought to herself. ‘I should like nothing better than a Prince with an army of knights to rescue me from this tower. And that magician certainly deserves to have his head lopped off.’

During this time Josie explored the tower room thoroughly. A blind girl can explore a room quite as well as a sighted one, given enough time, and when she is done she knows a great many things that the sighted one still has no clue about. The door was one of those things you or I might walk past a thousand times, and not notice a thing, but to Josie’s sensitive fingers it was as obvious as a line of red ink on a whitewashed wall, and the handle concealed in the carved olive branches of the panelling no more hidden than a brass knocker. It was a door about Josie’s size, under a writing desk that was ifrit-sized, which was a further reason she supposed why Zardeenah did not seem to know it was there. She was consumed with curiosity about what might lie behind it. It was good to have something to think about that had nothing to do with her troubles – except, just perhaps, as the first link in a plan of escape. The door was locked, but she had a very good idea of where the key might be – there were several keys inside a little porcelain box on a high shelf. The problem was only that Zardeenah never left her alone.

‘But if humans are really so clever at fooling ifrits, like she says we are, I should be able to think of something.  Or I could ask, I suppose, since I have not been told the door is forbidden. But, then if it is, as it probably will be, she will be forewarned and hide the key, and maybe put something heavy in front of the door.’

***

After Josie thought of something to distract Zardeenah it all happened exactly as she had imagined: when the lady ifrit had gone, she retrieved the porcelain box, rummaged through it to find the keys and took them under the desk with her. In a most satisfactory way the very first key she selected slipped easily into the lock and turned, and the door opened. The air behind it was cool, with a faint smell of drains and mouldy straw, and the inside of the door was covered with a thick coat of dust. She stepped cautiously through the doorway, careful to touch the walls and floor only with her bare hands and feet, since she did not want to leave telltale smudges on her clothes. Beyond the door was a little landing for a spiral staircase with steps leading both up and down.

‘It is a sensible thing to be here,’ she thought. ‘The tower was probably built in the first place by men who didn’t have ifrit servants, and would need a way to get up and down. And even if it was built later by the evil magician, if I was him I would want a way to get anywhere without letting my slaves know, just in case.’ Josie put the ‘if I was him’ out of her thoughts – it was too horrible to think that it might ever be true - closed the door behind her, and started down the staircase.  She passed other landings, and there might have been other doors with keyholes that a sighted girl could have peered through, but likely as not it would have been pitch black in those rooms anyway. She hurried on toward the bottom, because she wanted to find out what was behind the door, which meant getting as far she safely could get in the short time she had.

The staircase ended in a small room with a very dirty floor. Something that could only have been the dried-out body of a rat crunched under the ball of Josie’s left foot. Here was a grate, from which the foul smell of drains was strongest; and here was a faint draught playing across her ankles, coming from under a door. She bent down and felt the cool night air trickling in, carrying with it the unmistakeable scent of honeysuckle. The hopeful outsidiness of the smell made her desperately keen to keep going.

Here was the door’s handle, rough with verdigris. She turned it with difficulty and pushed against the door. When nothing happened, she forgot she was trying to keep her clothes clean and threw all her weight against the door through her shoulder. On the third try, the door swung open with a loud crack and spilled her out through a honeysuckle vine onto the grass.

‘Well, that’s torn it,’ she said, fingering the tear in the shoulder of her dress. ‘It will be hard hiding that I’ve been somewhere I shouldn’t now.’ She stood up and dusted herself off. ‘So I should make the most of this adventure while I can.’

It is unfortunate that things that are beautiful and people who are kind do not always go together, for that walled garden was a very beautiful place and it would be nice to think that it had been planned by a man of Telmar who had something kindly inside of him, in order to imagine a place so lovely and peaceful. But history is full of tyrants who made the most beautiful gardens and temples and thought nothing of also making pyramids from the severed heads of the peoples they conquered, or fires to roast their enemies alive. So the man who planned that garden was very likely as horrid as all the other men of Telmar who come into this story.

The garden was round, with a wall on all sides, and had been planted with many different flowering plants which were now growing with a wild exuberance, though it had been kept up well enough that there were still lanes of lawn in between them. Next to the honeysuckle were oleanders, and then wisteria, and then several sorts of flowering bushes and vines that Josie did not recognise.  Standing around the edge where the marks on a clock would be were cypresses, and in the middle was a stone fountain, dry except for a little puddling from the rain. It was one of those fountains like a pie-plate, with an edge you can easily step over, a flat tiled expanse for the water to play in, and something in the middle for the water to come out of. This something was a pedestal about as high as Josie, with carved horses’ heads around the edges, and in the centre two sandalled stone feet that presumably connected to the rest of a statue – but Josie could not reach that high.

In one place in the wall there was a gate made of metal bars, but it was locked fast, and fit snugly into its stone arch, so there was no question of Josie squeezing through the bars or over the top of them. ‘So that way is out,’ she told herself.

Beyond the cypresses, right up close to the wall of the garden, were three more statues. There was a stag with his head low to the ground, as if he was about to charge; a large snarling cat that might have been a lioness or a leopard; and some sort of fairy-tale creature that Josie did not recognise. It was twice as tall as she was, and had bandy sorts of legs with clawed feet, arms that bent down at such strange angles that she bumped her head against them more than once – it did not help that there were four of them - and bits of it seemed to be carved into very realistically textured feathers. When she climbed it, since it seemed to be the tallest thing close enough to the wall for her to get an idea of how tall the wall was, she found it had a head like some great bird of prey.

‘What curious taste in statues these men of Telmar had,’ said Josie to herself. ‘It must have been a terrible lot of work to carve these things, and here they are tucked away in a corner of this garden.’

Josie found that by standing gingerly on top of the head of the bird-headed thing, supporting her weight by one hand leaning against the wall of the garden, she could just reach the top of the wall with the outstretched fingertips of her other hand.

‘I could probably jump and grab the top and pull myself up,’ said Josie to herself. ‘But there is no way of knowing what is on the other side. If it is the outside, I will have to deal with those wild dogs; and if it isn’t the outside, well, it could be anything. And the drop could be a lot farther on that side, for all I know.’

Josie was spared the chance to do something rash at that moment, or dither further about whether she should do something rash, by losing her footing and falling to the ground.

She lay there under something like a camellia bush, catching her breath. She had had the wind knocked out of her, and struck her elbow painfully on a foot of the statue, but did not seem to have broken anything.

‘Oh dear,’ she said to herself, hearing flapping in the sky above her. ‘Can Zardeenah be back so soon?’

There was more flapping as whoever it was entered a window, then she heard her own name called inside the tower. Very shortly afterward the sound of ifrit wings flapping came again, as Zardeenah – for it had been her voice – launched herself back into the air.

‘Back, I must get back,’ thought Josie, and scrambled to her feet, thinking at that moment only of hiding herself in under the blankets and pretending not to have been away when Zardeenah returned again. She had long practice at remembering the layout of new places on a brief acquaintance, so was able to run across the garden back to the door at a cracking pace without tripping over anything.

‘I will have to pretend I fell asleep somewhere peculiar, and didn’t hear her,’ Josie told herself, walking up the stairs as quickly as she dared. She knew her clothes would be dirty from falling to the ground, and it would be obvious to Zardeenah that she had gotten out somehow. ‘But maybe she won’t notice. Please, God, let her not notice.’

When Josie returned the ifrit did not seem to be there. She locked the hidden door, changed into a nightdress, took one of the underblankets from her sleeping pile, and curled up in a corner between a cabinet and the wood-box.

Before long there was the flapping of wings at the window, and a voice calling once more, bright with anger. ‘Josie?’

Josie stirred as if she was waking up from a deep sleep, and answered. ‘Yes?’

Josie could not see Zardeenah, but she could feel her eyes boring into her as she gave her a long stare. ‘Indeed, yes,’ said Zardeenah, the words pronounced so that they meant something entirely different.  ‘So, you have been there all this time?’ she asked.

‘All this time?’ said Josie.

‘Very well then,’ said Zardeenah. ‘Come out of there and sleep in the proper place.’

‘It felt more comforting over here when you were gone, somehow,’ explained Josie, acting as if she were younger than she was. She gathered up the underblanket and wandered over to her bed acting as sleepily as she could manage.

‘I don’t believe you for a moment,’ said Zardeenah. ‘Up to some scheming, I am sure. Well, I would do nothing else in your place.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Josie, settling herself down on her bed of blankets.

‘There are stranger things in the world,’ said Zardeenah, and Josie could still feel the pressure of her inhuman gaze. ‘I have it mind not to tell you the news Saleh has brought.’

‘Please tell, Zardeenah,’ said Josie, ‘I really am sorry to worry you.’

‘Not so sorry as you will be when you hear it, girl,’ said Zardeenah, but her voice was not unkind. ‘It would only have meant his death, of course, but your ally from the human lands will not be coming to save you. He has turned back.’

‘Oh,’ said Josie, thinking of the man Margis she had never met. She had not known that she had put any hope at all in him coming to rescue her, but at the news that he certainly wasn’t, she felt a crushing sense of disappointment. ‘That’s too bad,’ she said.

‘Console yourself with the thought that he would certainly have died otherwise,’ said Zardeenah. ‘He and all of those with him. We ifrits are powerful servants.’

Josie did not find this a terribly consoling thought. ‘Do you know why he turned back?’ she asked.

‘His brother was thrown from a horse and broke his neck,’ said Zardeenah. ‘That is the tale Saleh brought. He was needed then to return to the city of the humans.’

Josie thought of Gerry and the accident again, and bit her lip. ‘Maybe he will try again later.’

‘Indeed,’ said Zardeenah. ‘Maybe he will.’

***

At midwinter Jabeth and Eber returned with two great diamonds from the Valley of Fire, and Yustus made Josie feel them.

‘Are they not splendid?’ he said. ‘They are exactly the right size, and a splendid shade of blue. I always think that a pale woman like you looks most imposing with blue eyes.’

Josie held the stones in her hands and wondered if they would smash if she were to hurl them at the floor.

Yustus snatched the diamonds out of her hands as if he could tell what she was thinking. ‘You are growing well,’ he said approvingly. ‘Soon you will have reached your full height, and then, ah, then let the world tremble before a new queen!’

‘I will kill myself first,’ said Josie. ‘I will.’

Yustus laughed. ‘No, you won’t. The power that is in you will not let you. The hunger for life is strong in you. I never saw the White Queen, but I recognise in you what is said of her in the tales. Only those who are exceptional in power are drawn through from world to world.’

‘You should be careful, then,’ said Josie. ‘Maybe I’ll work out how to use my power against you.’

‘Delightful, child!’ said Yustus, reaching out and patting her cheek. ‘Delightful! You just keep telling yourself that.’

***

At times it seemed to Josie that she had spent all her life as a prisoner of the evil magician. At first she missed her mother, she missed her sister, she missed potatoes and the smell of the bush and the hot Australian sunshine; but she missed these things less and less each day, and all her memories of her life before she came to the new world grew more and more vague and dreamlike.  From the passing of the seasons, she could tell that more than a year went by: a year of eating Telmarine food, and wearing Telmarine clothes, and only rarely speaking to anyone other than Zardeenah.  She could feel her body growing and changing – which would have happened wherever she was, but seemed almost to be a malign enchantment in Telmar. For she knew that when she had grown close enough to a woman’s size and shape Yustus would judge her big enough to steal her body, and this made the process of growing up, which was already nasty enough, truly horrible.

Every month or so Josie would be brought before Yustus, who would appraise how much she had grown and say again how fine her white arms would be splendid for casting incantations. Sometimes he would come up and squeeze her arms when he said how fine and white they were, and once he had her brought before him naked - so he could look her over for blemishes, he said - but he did not do any of the most dreadful things that Josie had feared evil magicians might do to girls they captured, especially after she had heard Zardeenah’s stories.

Josie often felt that she would have gone mad if it were not for the garden.  She could not go down there often, and had to plan her excursions very carefully so as not to be caught. When she thought about it, she was quite certain that Zardeenah had a good idea of where she had gone, that first night when she returned unexpectedly; but Josie was very careful not to give her any extra cause for suspicion. Thinking about how she would next get out took up a good deal of Josie’s time; and when she was out, she savoured every moment of the outside air on her skin and the smell of the garden, and learned every branch of the bushes until she could navigate in the garden as easily as she could in her bedroom at home.  Sometimes she would sit underneath the statues and talk to them.

It was a summer evening and the crickets were loud, and Josie was stretched out on the grass beneath the statue that was rather like a lion.

‘It seems a terrible shame to bring me here just so I can be a prisoner and then be taken over by an evil magician. What is the point of it all? I wish I knew what was going on. Please, Aslan, if you can hear me, do something to get me out of here.’

These were the sorts of thoughts that had gone and on around in her head unceasingly all year. She prayed a little prayer. ‘Please, God, help me to get out of here.’ She tried to be calm, and breathe slowly, and told herself for the ten-thousandth time that while there was life there was hope. After a while she felt a kind of peace.

‘It will be all right in the end,’ she told herself. ‘It has to be.’

She gave the face of the great stone cat a familiar pat, and made her way back to the door at the base of the tower.

The next day Yustus told her she was ready.


	10. An Unexpected Meeting

‘Tomorrow,’ thought Josie, in an agony of bitterness. Yustus had explained how it would work to her with an unutterably nasty glee. She would be given a drug to keep her from moving, and her eyes would be cut out, and then the blue diamonds would be put in their place, and once they had healed into place and he was sure she could see through them he would swap her into his own loathsome body. ‘And then he will kill me, I suppose,’ she said to herself. She fought down a terrible feeling of being powerless, trapped, overwhelmed.

It was the middle of the night, and Zardeenah had gone somewhere – Josie did not know where, or how long she would be gone, she had just heard her go as she lay there unable to sleep – so Josie had gone into the garden. She would try to escape. She could not fly herself, or burrow through the ground like a mole; the only way was to chance climbing over the wall. She should have done it before, she cursed herself, but the evil magician was quite right when he said that she could not will her own destruction. And climbing the wall, not knowing what was on the other side except for hungry wild dogs and mile after mile of wilderness, had seemed to her until this very moment too much like suicide.

Josie climbed carefully to the top of the bird-headed statue, judging each step carefully so she would not slip. She balanced herself on its head, made sure of her footing, and then leapt up to grab the top of the wall. Her fingers clung for an instant, then slipped, and she crashed down to the ground.

Determined, she grimly climbed the statue and tried again, with the same result. This time she could not help crying.

‘Try again, Josie,’ she told herself, wiping her face on her arm so she would not make her hands wet. ‘Try again.’

She climbed the statue a third time, tears streaming down her face. She told herself fiercely to stop blubbing, but the tears would not stop coming. Slowly, carefully, she steadied herself on the shoulders of the statue, then its head. ‘Third time lucky,’ she told herself, wiping her face on her arm again.

Josie did not notice, but in each place her tears landed on the statue, it began to change. The exquisitely-carved feathers became yet more fine, beyond the skill of any carver, then stirred in the gentle breeze. The stone became softer and warmer than stone. And the patches spread – slowly at first, and then with the swiftness of a locomotive.

Josie tensed herself to jump, and the statue moved.

The head turned, the body twisted at the hip, and she fell again. This time the statue caught her. The four arms, no longer stone, but flesh, made a secure net beneath her, cradling her like a baby.

Josie took a long shuddering inward breath, abruptly forgetting to cry any more. The arms smelled comforting in a feathery way, like a pillow, and she found she was not scared at all. A voice – a strange unmusical but not at all unpleasant voice – formed a word she did not understand.

***

‘Nera?’ said Tash. The world was streaming back into warmth and colour with unimaginable speed, bringing his mind back from whatever stony place it had been sleeping in, and there was a creature in his arms. It was a living creature with two arms and two legs and a tuft of dark fibrous stuff on its head, a human being, and though it was wet in patches it did not appear to be bleeding. He bent his head to down to look more closely at the creature in his arms, and the impossible hope within him died. It wore the same kind of black garment and seemed to be the same kind as Nera, but it was a paler creature than she had been, and taller, and fleshed like one who had more regular meals, and smelled saltier. Nera was gone. She was dead; he had seen her, moments before, and his heart should still have been hammering with the horribleness of it all, but it was slow, slower than it ought to be at a normal time, and he was holding on to this new human being.

‘Thank you,’ said the creature.

‘What for?’ asked Tash.

‘You caught me,’ she said.

‘Oh,’ said Tash. He uncurled one arm from beneath her and touched the wetness of her face. It made his skin tingle in a curious way, and sent a twitch of exultation all the way up his arm to somewhere between his shoulderblades. The creature made a noise then, and he drew his hand back in alarm. ‘What is happening?’ he asked.

‘I was climbing the wall, trying to escape from this garden,’ she said, wiping her eyes. ‘You were a statue. Then you came to life.’

‘Oh,’ said Tash. So that was what had happened to him; they had made him into a statue. ‘Then we should get out of this garden?’

‘Yes,’ said the creature.

‘I will put you down now,’ he said.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘My name is Josie.’

‘I am Tash,’ said Tash, and very carefully set her down on the ground. He seemed stronger than he was used to being, and did not want to hurt her. He looked around. There were strange things above him. The moon was a skinny toenail clipping of light, and the sky was alive with hundreds or thousands of stars. He was glad for the walls and tall plants that put some sort of a limit to the unsettling bright things, confining them to a ragged circle of sky above him. The plants were unfamiliar. Besides the stars, the human Josie, and himself, there was nothing that he recognised in the garden. Things built out of stone are much the same on any world, however, and that was clearly a broken stone tower jutting upward, beyond the garden. A little further away there was another tower, unbroken, with light coming from windows about halfway up. It was a warm, reddish gold kind of light, not at all like the fires of his own world. ‘This must be Nera’s world,’ he thought, fascinated.

‘The wall is behind you,’ said Josie. ‘I don’t know what is on the other side.’

‘I will look,’ said Tash, forcing himself back to the task at hand. He would have struggled to climb a wall like this on the world of the thalarka, but here he simply had to reach up, grab the top, and pull himself onto it. The sky was larger from up here, and it made him dizzy. Beyond the wall was a valley overgrown with the same tall plants that grew in the garden, but now he was looking down on them: the tops of the closest were twice the height of the wall beneath him. A few miles away in every direction he could see the valley rise into hills covered with the same sort of plants, and when he peered down he could see a trickle of water glistening over rocks.

‘What is there?’ asked Josie, after he had spent rather a long time looking out at it. The bigness of the sky with so many stars in it gave him an uneasy giddy feeling that refused to go away.

‘It goes down a long way,’ said Tash. ‘Steep, but not straight down. I could climb it. There is a stream, and a big space with lots of plants.’

‘They are coming for me,’ said Josie urgently.

‘Who?’ said Tash. Then he too heard the flapping – the beating of several pairs of wings of Tash-sized creatures, approaching the tower.

‘Ifrits,’ said the human. This word meant nothing at all to Tash, but he was sure he did not want to find out anything more about the they who were coming for Josie just at the moment. Josie was standing by the wall lifting her arms above her head, and Tash let go of the narrow wall with a pair of hands to hoist her up.

The memory of Nera spilling out of his arms recurred horribly to Tash. ‘I will hold you and climb down,’ he said firmly. ‘It will be alright.’

‘Okay,’ said Josie. ‘Thank you.’

Tash was unaccustomed to being treated so politely. This Josie was different from Nera: she seemed to be from a nicer place than Nera had been, a safer place. He wondered how she had come to be a prisoner here – there was so very much to wonder about. Until a little while ago the world had seemed full enough of curious and intriguing things, though it consisted every day of the same grith fields, the same featureless sky, and the same thalarka; and now everything was new. The air was dry and cool and smelled of things he had never smelled before; and all those strange new points of light in the sky were like thousands of eyes watching him.

‘Is something wrong?’ asked the warm and curiously pleasant-smelling creature that was clinging around his neck.

‘No,’ said Tash. He must try to not get distracted, he thought. He would be useful in this new world. He would not lose this human – Josie – like he had lost Nera. ‘I will climb down now,’ he said aloud.

Tash missed having all four arms to climb with, but it was not a great burden carrying Josie; it was as if she weighed nothing at all. It was further to the base of the wall on the outside, with hardly anything to hold on to, and there was only a knob of rock at the beginning before the cliff began, but the cliff was not difficult to climb down once he was there. Only near the bottom, under the shadow of the plants, did he get overconfident and distracted into peering at the sky, and ended up half-scrambling and half-rolling the last few dozen feet into a thorny bush.

‘Sorry,’ said Tash.

‘It’s okay,’ said Josie. ‘You took all the lumps.’ Indeed, without thinking he had curled himself around Josie to protect her.

‘You can let me go now,’ she said.

‘Yes, I will do that,’ Tash said, putting her down carefully beyond the bush. They seemed to be not far from the stream he had seen from above.

‘Thank you,’ said Josie. ‘Thank you very much,’ Her voice sounded different than it had inside the garden – higher in pitch, with more breath in it. She made a curious noise that sounded unaccountably pleasant to Tash.

‘What does that mean?’ he asked.

‘I am happy,’ she said. ‘That’s all.’

‘That’s good,’ he said. He looked at Josie, at the trees, at the wiry loops of thorn bush he had just climbed out of.

‘What is this place?’ he asked. ‘Why were you a prisoner?’

‘Hush,’ said Josie, in a different kind of voice again.

‘What does that mean?’ he asked.

‘It means you should be quiet,’ she said. She pointed upwards, and a few moments later Tash could hear them too – the ifrits had left the tower, and were fanning out across the valley. One of them called to another, and then another ifrit voice came, from someplace quite different. He could not make out any of the words. He crouched down in the undergrowth next to Josie for what seemed quite a long time.

‘We need to find a better place to hide, and quick,’ said Josie, when none of the ifrits seemed to be flapping close by.

‘Yes,’ said Tash. ‘Do you know anywhere?’

‘No,’ said Josie. ‘I haven’t been here before.’

‘We could follow the water,’ he suggested. ‘It makes sound, so it will make our sounds harder to hear.’ And even if it is cold, it will be get rid of this horrible dry feeling in my feet, he thought.

‘I suppose there might be overhangs and things,’ she said. ‘But it seems an obvious way for the ifrits to check.’

‘Where we are now seems an obvious place,’ said Tash. ‘But they haven’t come here yet.’

‘I suppose so,’ said Josie.

‘Uphill or downhill?’ asked Tash.

Josie made a noise that Tash recognised as one of exasperation. He had heard ones very like it from his mothers and sisters many times. ‘Whatever you like,’ she said.

Tash hurried toward the stream – the sounds of their flying pursuers were getting louder again – and then followed it upstream, plashing along the wet rocks at the edge. It felt nice to have water on his feet again, though it was as nastily cold as he had imagined. After a few moments he noticed Josie was falling badly behind. She was very slow. He backtracked a little. ‘Are you hurt?’ he asked her.

‘No,’ she said. Her face seemed to be wet again. ‘I’m sorry to slow you down. I’m blind. You might have to carry me.’

‘I will do that,’ said Tash, feeling useful, and scooped her up. It felt very good, despite all the horrible things that had happened and the danger they were still in, to walk so quickly through this wild place carrying someone who depended on him.

‘I am not useless here, not at all,’ he thought to himself.


	11. A Bad End

Of all the astonishing things that had happened to Josie, the statue coming to life as she climbed it was close to the most astonishing. It was strange how she had not been frightened, even at the very first. Tash was so obviously kind and had such a comforting smell. It was vaguely like jasmine, and impossible for Josie to associate with anything bad or dangerous.

She had no real hope that anything good would happen, when she began her desperate climb over the wall. Tash’s arrival had been miraculous; that was the only way to describe it. She could not help laughing for joy when their climb was over.

‘This has to be a dream,’ Josie told herself, as she had told herself so many times since she awoke by the side of the Lion’s Pool. ‘But I feel so very awake.’ She clung tightly to Tash, who had been a statue such a short time before, as he carried her through the forest on long swift legs.

‘Do you think this will do?’ asked Tash. Josie could still clearly hear the tinkling of the stream and the whistles of the night birds, but the air had a more closed-in feeling than it had before. There was a musty, herbal smell of decayed vegetable life.

‘I suppose so,’ she answered, climbing rather stiffly out of Tash’s arms and onto a carpet of dry leaves. ‘What is it like?’

‘A sort of a cave’ said Tash. ‘Just a little one. There are plants in front to make it hard to see.’

‘It doesn’t smell like any animal lives here – nothing large, at any rate – so it ought to do.’ Josie sat down on the leaves, which were soft and comfortable, if noisy whenever she moved a muscle. ‘If the ifrits know it is here, it will be a problem, but they seemed to spend most of their time at the castle, or miles and miles away running errands, so maybe they don’t know.’

‘It is dry,’ Tash said unhappily.

‘Dry is good for me,’ said Josie, and smiled. ‘Is it very wet where you come from?’

‘I think it must be,’ Tash said. ‘All the other places I have been so far seem too dry.’ There was a rush of dusty air, and rustling noise that took a long time to stop as Tash sat down

‘I hope it won’t be too uncomfortable for you,’ said Josie. ‘Maybe you will get used to it.’ Or maybe you will have to spend most of your time in a pond, like a frog, so you won’t dry out, she thought, but didn’t say. ‘Where is your country?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Tash. ‘I – I came through a hole from a place where the sky is different. Everything is different.’

‘So did I!’ said Josie. ‘I came here from a different world entirely, somehow.’ She shook her head, but grinned with a wild exhilaration that came from she-knew-not-where. ‘It is the kind of thing that only happens in stories.’

‘We do not have any stories about holes into other worlds where I come from,’ said Tash. ‘I did not know of such things until I went through one.’

‘Well, that too,’ said Josie. ‘But what I meant was, there aren’t many people coming into this world from other places, from what the gazelles – from what other people I talked to here – said, so it is amazing that we should meet up with each other. It is the sort of thing that happens in stories, where a man might be walking down the road in a foreign country and rescue a strange woman from danger, and the strange woman turns out to be his long lost sister.’

‘I would have been in very great trouble if I ever lost a sister,’ said Tash gravely.

‘I didn’t mean the man would have been the one who lost his sister, I meant she would have been lost in some other way.’

‘Maybe her parents sent her off to be sacrificed for the greater glory of the Overlord, without telling her brother?’ suggested Tash.

Josie shuddered. ‘Is that- is that the sort of thing that happens in your world?’

Tash said nothing, and Josie guessed he was nodding, or shrugging, or something like that, from the way the dry leaves crunched beneath him.

‘Well, we should be figuring out how we can get away from this evil magician and his servants and find ourselves somewhere safe,’ said Josie. ‘I am sure there will be plenty of time to tell our stories. So. I do know this place is a long long way from any inhabited country, at least from what other people said before I was carried off. I don’t know anything about the country around us. I was carried here through the air, a long way, from the place I arrived in this world. Did you get to see much before you came here? Do you have any idea where we could go?’

‘I did not see anything,’ said Tash, sounding apologetic. A sort of sad uncertainty had come into his voice since the topic of long-lost sisters had come up, and Josie had a powerful urge to pick him up and give him a hug.

‘I was not outside until just now,’ Tash continued. The last thing I remember I was in an inside place, and there were creatures who looked like you, and dressed like you, so I think it was the inside of the same place as we were at. But that is all.’

Josie shuffled herself closer to Tash and reached out to pat one of his hands, in lieu of the impossibility of picking him and giving him a hug.

‘Maybe we should tell each other our stories, then,’ she said. ‘It might be there is something in them that can help us.’

Tash said nothing one way or the other, so after a moment Josie started to tell her story, much as it has been written here: how she was going to England to live with her father, how she was swept overboard, how she wasn’t drowned but ended up in a strange world, and how she had fallen in with the gazelles. It seemed to her that Tash cheered up a little as she told her story.

‘They say there is a lion who pulls people out of other worlds into this world, because there is something important they are supposed to do here. He is kind of like- like a god, I suppose, of this world.’ She said this last bit as if it was something shameful, since it was after all shameful to act as if there were any gods other than the real God.

‘One of the humans said something about a lion, before I was turned to stone,’ said Tash. ‘What is a lion? And a god, what is that?’

Josie explained as best she could.

‘That is what the gazelles told me, at any rate,’ she said, when she was finished. ‘They seemed to think I had been brought here for some particular reason. Which would mean you were, too. And us both being here makes it seem very likely.’

Tash sounded dubious. ‘I was sent out of my world by- by an evil magician. And it was only chance that I got here, instead of somewhere else. I think. So I don’t think that this lion can have brought me here.’

‘They say God works in mysterious ways,’ said Josie, with some bitterness. ‘So I suppose this lion could work in mysterious ways too, if he is a sort of god.’

‘We did not have a God,’ said Tash. ‘Only the Overlord Varkarian. I think her ways were mysterious. But I don’t see how it can be the lion bringing me here, if it was an evil magician, and me deciding to choose to jump one way instead of another.’

‘I guess it really doesn’t matter anyway,’ Josie said. ‘Even if we are supposed to do something in particular, there’s no way we can go out of our way to do it if we don’t know what it is. We will have to figure out what to do without the help of a lion.’

She went on with her story, telling Tash how she had gone along with the plans of the gazelles because they seemed to know what they were doing, and were kind to her.

‘There is only one kind of speaking creature on my world,’ said Tash. ‘All the others are just beasts.’

‘It is the same on mine,’ said Josie. She had never quite gotten around to letting go of Tash’s hand.

‘And it is strange that we all speak the same language, though we come from different worlds.’

‘I thought that was strange, too,’ admitted Josie. ‘It is one of the things that makes me still think this is a dream, though it feels so real.’

‘It feels very real,’ said Tash, and Josie could feel the inhuman shudder that ran through him. ‘I do not want it to end. Though it is too dry.’

‘How could we ever tell that anything is real, really?’ said Josie, squeezing Tash’s hand. He squeezed hers back, and she gave an involuntary cry of pain.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Tash, as Josie retrieved her hand and rubbed it. ‘I am stronger here than I was.’

‘That’s okay,’ said Josie. ‘Ouch.’

She went on to tell Tash how she had been carried off by the ifrits, and what the evil magician said he was going to do to her.

‘That name, Yustus,’ said Tash. ‘The others said that name, just before they turned me to stone. They were turning me to stone until he came back. He was going to get the apples you talked about. I am not sure what apples are.’

‘They are a kind of fruit,’ said Josie. ‘He said he came back with them, and all the others had been turned into beasts by the lion,’ said Josie.

‘Good,’ said Tash.

‘I suppose they deserved it,’ said Josie. It was growing cold, now that the excitement of escape was passing, and she wished she had taken a blanket with her when she escaped from her tower. She drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them to make a little ball of Josie-ness.

‘Hang on,’ she said, as she turned the events of her second meeting with the magician over in her mind to see which way they would fit in a story. ‘I remember the magician’s hand was all over rings, and Zardeenah said that rings were used to control the ifrits. Maybe if we took the magician’s rings... somehow... the ifrits wouldn’t be under his control, and would help us?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Tash. It seemed as if his attention had wandered, or he was growing sad again, or both.

‘It is something to try for, anyway, if we get an opportunity,’ said Josie. ‘The kinds of rings an evil magician wears are almost always good to get away from him.’

Tash made the kind of nod or shrug that Josie had noticed him making a couple of times before.

‘Maybe that’s why we got away, even though the ifrits were so close,’ mused Josie. ‘I thought it seemed too easy in the forest, almost as if they didn’t really want to find us. Maybe they can’t do anything directly against their master’s orders, but they’ll do whatever they can to trickily work against him so they can get free –that’s what ifrits would do in the stories on my world. So they’ve let us go, and they’ll let us run free as much as they can get away with, on the off chance that we’ll do something that will set them free.’

‘The stories of your world seem to contain many useful things,’ said Tash. ‘Ours are all about the necessity of obedience to the Overlord.’

‘That’s terrible,’ said Josie.

‘What about the rest of your story?’ she asked after a minute. ‘Why don’t you tell me what happened to you?’

‘I am not very good at recounting events,’ said Tash, taking her question literally. ‘And I feel very confused.’

‘That’s alright,’ said Josie. She shivered. ‘Maybe later is better.’ Outside, she could hear the howls of the wild dogs drawing closer. They did not know what sort of thing Tash was, she thought, so they were being cautious.

‘If the dogs- the animals that make those sounds- come to the edge of the cave, you need to throw something at them hard to make them afraid of us,’ she told Tash. ‘If they think we are dangerous, they will stay away, but if they think they can beat us, they will try to kill us.’

‘I can do that,’ said Tash confidently. ‘I am stronger here.’

***

It was a pleasant thing for Tash to think about, that he was stronger in this place than he had ever been, and he had thought about it for rather a long time. It seemed all the time he was thinking that Josie was just about to say something more, so that Tash remained quite awake, but she fell asleep instead. She had seemed cold to Tash, and he certainly seemed cold to himself, so when she was asleep he curled up around her. She stirred, but did not wake. Nothing would happen to her as had happened to Nera, Tash promised himself. Never, never, never. The night of the strange world rolled on towards dawn.

Tash was not very tired. He had been resting, after a fashion, for who knows how many years. He was also unused to the uncomfortable prickling dryness, so he woke while Josie still slept even though he had stayed awake very late indeed. The sun was already high in the sky, casting a strange hot yellow light, and the plants at the entrance to the cave made complicated shadows on the floor. The edges of the complicated curling shapes were sharp, but they moved constantly as the plants shifted in the wind, making the floor a seething mass of light and shadow that kept Tash’s attention for a long moment despite the fierce itching that had woken him. He carefully unwrapped himself from around the human and went to bathe in the stream.

In the daylight the sky, where it could be seen between the trees, was painfully blue, brighter than the sky of the world where he had met Nera. The space between the trees was flecked with countless flying things. There were large ones with feathers like his own, dozens of them, in many different kinds; and smaller ones, thousands of them, with fragile wings that were transparent opal or any one of a hundred brightly-coloured patterns.

The stream was deep enough that if he sat in it, it came up to his middle, and he enthusiastically splashed water over the rest of himself. It was very cold, but it made the itchiness disappear at once, and in some curious way it felt more like water than the water of his own world did. This whole place was like that. It felt alive: beautifully and wonderfully alive. For all the dangers here, it was a world that was more alive than his own, and he felt more alive in it.

He would never go back to his own world, he told himself. It was not possible; and if it were possible, he would not do it. Whatever dangers waited for him here, he would never be sacrificed to the Overlord. ‘Sweeter than narbul venom it is-‘ he found himself thinking reflexively, and stopped himself. Then thinking of narbul venom reminded him that it must have been a long time since he ate anything, and he wondered that he did not feel hungrier. Except for the lime ice, he had eaten nothing at all since he had been a prisoner underneath the Procurator’s tower, who knows how many lifetimes ago.

‘And who knows how far away,’ he thought joyously.

Because of the noise of the stream, Tash saw the shadows momentarily dimming the sunlight before he heard the flapping of the great wings of the ifrits. It would have made more sense for him to remain still and quiet, instead of getting up with a great splashing and rushing back to the cave, but as it turned out it would have made no difference. The magician had evidently found where they were hiding by some magic, and arrived outside the cave a few instants after Tash ran rashly into it to wake Josie.

‘Awake!’ he cried, but she was already awake and alert, brushing the crumbs of leaves from her garment. ‘Be brave,’ she told him.

It was easier for Tash to be brave when he saw that the magician was not carrying the wand that had turned him to stone. It was still not easy at all, though, and he fought the impulse to bow his head and let his arms droop in submission. The magician was darker than Josie, though not as dark as Nera had been, and he stood head and shoulders above the girl; in turn he came only up to the chests of the ifrits who stood to either side of him. Their skin was the livid red of boiled mire-beast, their eyes had the cruel glare familiar to Tash from the priests of his own people, and they bore spectacular arching membranous wings, but otherwise they looked much like humans. They were wearing breechclouts and embroidered vests that were too small for them, open in the front, while Yustus wore sombre black robes as evil magicians ought to.

‘You fools are as blind as the child,’ Yustus snapped at his minions. ‘There she is, and there is the fiend that helped her. Tell me, why did I not have it broken into pieces long ago?’

Tash tried to be brave, putting himself between Josie and her enemies, but Josie pushed past to stand at his side.

‘The thrill of the chase is all very well, but the time for games is over,’ said Yustus, relishing the sound of his own words.

‘No,’ said Josie.

‘Yes, child,’ said Yustus. ‘Your eyes are ready. Soon you will see. And soon afterwards-‘ he licked his lips. ‘Come quietly.’

‘No,’ said Josie, with authority. ‘I will not.’

‘It does not matter to me whether you come quietly or not,’ said the magician. ‘Eber, Saleh, seize her.’ The ifrits moved inexorably toward Josie, and Tash again tried to interpose himself, but she angrily batted him aside.

Why would she do that? She knows I am strong, and can fight them off, thought Tash.

Josie sprang, not backward into the cave, but sideways and away, crashing heedlessly through the undergrowth like someone who could see where she was going.

‘Get her!’ cried Yustus, his eyes glistening with excitement, and at a gesture the other two ifrits pounced after Josie. A few wingbeats, and the four ifrits had descended on Josie, bearing her down into a thorny bush. The magician clapped his hands in indecent glee.

His hands! Yes, one was bare, while the other bore six rings, five carved from precious stones, and one of gold. He and his ifrits were watching Josie’s capture, and - she knows I am strong, but they do not know I am strong - thought Tash in an instant. He thinks he is safe that far away.

Tash leapt forward, and in one bound had the magician’s hand in his beak.

‘Aieee!’ cried the magician, ‘Kill him, kill him, kill him!’ Tash’s beak cut through flesh and sinews instantly, but the bones offered more resistance; he levered his jaw back and forth, tasting human blood on his tongue for the first time. The ifrits had dropped Josie, were hurtling towards him in a storm of wings. The blood was hot and metallic and sweeter than narbul venom. One bone parted, than another; the magician’s hand tore free. The headlong rush of the ifrits suddenly slowed to a walk. Tash flicked his head, and sent the magician’s hand flying into the undergrowth.

‘Lion’s arsehole!’ swore the magician, desperately trying to staunch the torrent of blood from his stump with his remaining hand. ‘I will kill you with such tortures...’

‘No you won’t,’ said Tash, taking a few stumbling steps backward.

‘Help me,’ Yustus called to the ifrits. They slowly formed a circle around him, evidently in no hurry to obey his command.

‘You have been a good master to us,’ said the one the magician had called Eber, walking to where Tash had flung the magician’s hand.

‘Damn your balls, I have. Help me, you fools! And kill this monster.’

‘Of course, you could have been a better master,’ said Eber.

‘Damn you, help me.’ The magician was drawing on some hidden power, Tash could tell: although he was pale, he was controlling his pain, and the torrent of blood from his arm had slowed to a steady drip. Tash tried to follow Eber to where the hand lay, but the other ifrits blocked his path.

‘Indeed, I think you were no more than half the master you could have been,’ said Eber, retrieving the ring-encrusted hand. ‘What say you, my brothers?’

‘You speak truth,’ said Jabeth. The other two ifrits murmured their agreement.

‘What is this foolishness?’ cried Yustus. His concentration wavered, and he stumbled to one knee. He began – too late – to recite words that Tash could tell crackled with magic, forcing his good hand to trace letters in the air. ‘Makhr. Shalal. Khash...’

Eber nodded, and his brothers grabbed hold of Yustus by his ankles and his remaining wrist, as swiftly as a mist-stalker seizing a mire beast.

‘He has not been a half bad master to us,’ Eber told his brothers. ‘So take him halfway back to Telmar.’

‘No,’ said Yustus. ‘No!’ The wings of the three ifrits bore him irresistibly up into the painfully blue sky, up, up, and up. Eber followed a second after. A few drops of blood spattered the leaves of the bush where Josie lay, like the first fat drops of a thunderstorm.

The curses of Yustus trailed off in the direction of Telmar, and in a very little while were replaced by a scream, and then a sound of something hitting the ground.


	12. The Mistress of Telmar

It sounded like a lifeboat smacking the surface of the sea, Josie thought. She picked herself painfully out of the thornbush where she had been none-too-gently knocked by the ifrits.

‘I’m alright,’ she told Tash, who was anxiously forging into the bush to help her. ‘Just a little scratched. That was well done. Very well done.’ She reached up to Tash, and he pulled her out of the bush and took her into his arms.

‘Thank you,’ said Josie, starting to tremble. It had been so close, but Tash had taken her hint, and she had managed to distract the magician and his minions long enough for him to get the magician’s rings. She was not exactly sure what had happened, but could guess well enough from Yustus’ screams and curses.

‘Are you sure you are alright?’ asked Tash uncertainly.

‘Yes,’ she said, clinging to him. ‘How about you? You are bleeding.’

‘I think it is the magician’s blood,’ said Tash. ‘Excuse me, I need to drink.’ Tash carried Josie to the edge of the stream, set her carefully down, had rather a long drink and washed his face, and picked her up again. She did not say anything during this time. She was scratched and bruised - she seemed to have stabbed one foot particularly badly on a broken bit of branch - but she was happier than she had ever been. There was a long way to go to get to anything that she would have called a safe, normal life before, but she was free of the magician, and her soul danced and sang. In the distance, a wild dog howled a signal to its fellows.

‘I don’t think the ifrits will stay in the castle long,’ said Josie, once Tash had picked her up again. ‘They’ll want to go back to wherever it is they came from. We should go there.’

‘The castle?’ said Tash.

‘Yes,’ said Josie again. ‘Thank you.’ She tightened her arms around Tash.

‘You said that already,’ said Tash.

‘I suppose I did,’ said Josie. She laughed. ‘If this were a fairy tale, I would kiss you now, and you would turn into a handsome prince.’

‘What is kiss?’ asked Tash.

Josie laughed again, and planted her lips on the side of Tash’s broad beak. ‘This.’ It should have been as unsatisfactory as kissing the keys of a piano, but in some curious way it was not. Tash’s beak was like ivory, yes, but warm ivory, and smelt of jasmine, and a trace of magician’s blood.

‘I do not seem to be turning into anything,’ said Tash.

‘I expect you have transformed enough already to last you a good long time,’ said Josie. ‘Besides, this is some kind of real life, and not a fairy story.’

They gave the corpse of the magician, already surrounded by snarling wild dogs, a wide berth. The sounds of the dogs feeding carried a long way.

Josie clung to her strange protector as he loped through trees and clambered over rocks. She was still happy, deliriously happy, but underneath she also felt sick. Yustus had been an evil man, but she had killed him, as surely as if she had dropped him a hundred feet herself. He would be alive if it were not for her. But he would also be alive, she told herself sternly, if Tash had not played his part, and if the ifrits had not exacted their revenge, and if Yustus had not behaved so abominably himself and planned such horrible things for her, and if the Lion had not drawn her into this strange world. They were all links in a chain. Still she felt sick: she could not get rid of the feeling that the magician’s blood was on her head.

‘The castle is up there,’ said Tash. ‘But we have come back to the bottom of the steep cliff. I will go around the bottom of it and see if there is a way up.’

‘I was thinking about that,’ said Josie. ‘Of course there has to be a better way in, since he would have left himself some way to get in and out without the ifrits. But it occurred to me that there might be all kinds of nasty traps that way. So maybe we would be better off climbing up the wall where we climbed down it, since we know that is safe.’

‘Um,’ said Tash. But he was willing enough to follow Josie’s advice.

It was a hard climb, and there were a couple of times when Josie’s heart went into her mouth, but at length they found themselves back in the garden. The wound in Josie’s foot was bad enough that she could only limp painfully about, but it was very nice to lie back on the soft grass in the sunshine. Tash prowled about the garden, exploring.

‘What does the statue in the middle of the fountain look like?’ asked Josie. ‘I could only reach the feet.’

‘It looks a bit like you,’ said Tash. He sounded very weary to Josie, and she was tempted to tell him to sit down and have a rest instead of prowling about. ‘But too tall, as tall as me. And carved as if she was all over jewels. She is holding the head of some animal.’

‘Oh,’ said Josie, rolling onto her front. ‘What sort of animal?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Tash, but he described it to her as looking rather like one of the statues in the garden, the one without the antlers, but with more shagginess to it.

‘It sounds like a lion,’ she said.

‘So that is what a lion looks like,’ said Tash.

‘There hasn’t been any sound of the ifrits at all,’ said Josie. ‘I suppose they must be gone.’

‘I hope so,’ said Tash.

A moment later, in that curious way people have of appearing when you mention them, Josie heard the first faint sounds of distant flapping.

‘Uh-oh, they are coming,’ she said, and then corrected herself, as the sounds resolved into those made by a single pair of wings. ‘One of them, anyway.’

‘Shall we hide?’ Tash asked.

‘Let us find out what it wants, if it is only one,’ said Josie. ‘I am sure you can fight it, and I am sure it cannot carry me away alone.’ It seemed to Josie that they were Zardeenah’s wings, and not those of any of her brothers, as the sound drew closer. She could not have described what the difference was, but she knew it was there. She stood up, and a moment later Tash was standing protectively at her side.

‘Miss Furness,’ called a voice from the sky.

‘Yes, Zardeenah?’ Josie called in return. Zardeenah was not landing, but was circling in the air above them, near enough that Josie could smell the burnt cinnamon fragrance of her hair.

‘We are in your debt, my brothers and I,’ called the ifrit.

‘Yes?’ said Josie, thinking wildly for a moment of three wishes and magic carpets.

‘My brothers think it will amply settle our debt if we leave you as Mistress of Telmar,’ said Zardeenah.

‘But,’ began Josie. She was going to say, ‘But I don’t want to be Mistress of Telmar, I want to go to- to-‘ but she did not really want to go to the place where the gazelles were sending her, to the strange foreign men with their lion god and their prophecies. And the ifrits could carry her, but what about Tash? There was no way they could take him.

‘Indeed, I told my brothers, she cannot rightly be called Mistress of Telmar if she does not have possession of its secrets.’

‘Uh-huh,’ said Josie.

‘She would not find it herself in a hundred years of searching, I told my brothers, despite her magic; but I know the place where it is kept.’

‘But-' Josie began again.

‘So this is yours, Mistress of Telmar, she who turns-stone-to-flesh,’ said Zardeenah, and let something drop. Tash almost, but not quite, caught it, and bent over to pick it up from the grass.

‘Thank you,’ said Josie. ‘But I don’t want to be-'

‘Our debt is finished,’ called Zardeenah from a height as she flew rapidly away.

‘-Mistress of Telmar,’ Josie replied, to empty air.

‘It is a very grand place,’ said Tash. ‘Nearly as grand as the Procurator’s Tower. Here.’ He handed Josie the thing Zardeenah had dropped - a key as long as a fountain pen, carved out of some very hard glassy stone, which was tied to a silken ribbon.

‘The key to the secret treasure chamber, I expect,’ she said, and slipped the ribbon around her neck. She gave a rueful smile.

‘I am sure of it,’ said Tash.

***

Tash liked the look of the red key around Josie’s neck. It made her look more queenly, more like the statue. Surely there would more jewels in this place, and then Josie could be bedecked properly as Mistress of Telmar.

The highest ambition anyone could imagine in the village Tash had come from was to rise high in the service of the Overlord – this had been the way of things for countless generations – so it is not surprising that the dream of not being useless that had come into his head was of rising high in the service of Josie, Mistress of Telmar. He rather liked the statue in the middle of the fountain: the expression on the woman’s face put him in mind of the exultant way Josie had looked, when he had pulled her out of the thorny bush. The severed lion’s head, on the other hand, bore an expression of idiot malice. He supposed whoever carved the head had put it there on purpose, but it certainly did not look like the expression of any kind of god. The woman looked much more like a god.

‘Now, I can go through over there,’ said Josie, pointing almost at the base of the tower. ‘There’s a door. But I think it is too small for you.’

‘Maybe over here,’ said Tash. He had seen already the barred gate that Josie had found impenetrable, and a flagged courtyard beyond it, and thought that he would try his new strength out on it.

It was not easy, but the bars did bend a little when he tugged hard on them, and when he figured out the right way to twist the gate came off its hinges. ‘It worked!’ he said triumphantly.

‘I heard,’ said Josie, smiling at him. She started walking toward the gate in a slow and painful way.

‘Do you want me to carry you?’ he asked.

‘You have carried me enough for now,’ she said. But she did not make any protest when he gathered her up. Beyond the flagged courtyard there were other courtyards, and then a broad flight of steps leading up to heavy double doors. Tash tried these, and they opened with a loud crack, and beyond them was a high-ceilinged stone hall, and after a few more doors and halls and turning they found themselves in the rooms that had belonged to Yustus.

You or I would be pleased enough to find ourselves in possession of the palace of a magician, filled with all the good things that can be provided by magic; but we know of such things through stories, and have some idea of the kind of things we might find. Tash had no idea. He had never imagined such comfortable rooms, or so many good things to eat. There were cushions to sit on that were softer than anything he had thought of, and mirrors where he could see himself outlined as sharply as if here were some other thalarka- very drab he looked in such richly furnished rooms, he thought – and pools of warm water set in smooth white stone where he could soothe his itchy skin, but most of all there was the food. There was every kind of food that the ifrits had fetched for the magician - fresh fruits, and cold roast meats, and honeyed pastries, and other things that Tash had never seen or thought of. Every one of them tasted nicer than pickled grith, and he gorged himself in a haze of joy.

Josie meanwhile had bandaged her foot, eaten more sparingly, and gone to search the rooms for a change of clothes. ‘I know there are clothes for me in the tower by the garden, but it is a long walk back there,’ she told Tash.

When Tash was full enough he looked around for jewels and ornaments, of which there were plenty. There were also plenty of things that were of no immediate use to Tash – probably of no use to him, ever – but which still grabbed his attention, for magicians’ rooms tend to be full of such things. There were vials of evil-smelling oils and spices, leather-bound books of strange ideographs and peculiar pictures, strange implements of glass and nasty-looking metal instruments; curiously shaped knives in polished boxes; other things that looked like they could be used for carving words into wood, or flesh; a fragment of something that reminded Tash uncomfortably of part of the device the old thalarka had used to command the Gnawers.

Josie reappeared in clean garments of a shimmery soft material. Instead of a single long black garment, she had a much shorter green one on top, and billowy yellow things that that clung to her legs underneath. The ruby key looked very splendid indeed, Tash thought, on top of the green cloth.

‘I found these jewels for you,’ said Tash. ‘You will look very splendid.’

Josie took the things he offered, and smiled, but did not put them on. ‘Thank you.’

‘Did you really use your magic to change me back from stone?’ Tash asked cautiously.

Josie grimaced. ‘I don’t think so. Not unless it is like you being stronger, and it is something that happened when I came here. I don’t feel magical at all.’

‘You could try with the other statues in the garden and find out,’ suggested Tash.

‘Hmm,’ said Josie. ‘Not right now, I think. Just in case it does work. If it works, and either of those beasts aren’t talking beasts, or talking beasts that don’t like us, it will be very complicated and unpleasant. And I was just enjoying it being not complicated or unpleasant.’

‘You are right,’ said Tash.

Josie sat down on one of the big cushions with a sigh of relief, and Tash realised that he was also very tired. In the excitement of exploring all the marvels of the palace he had quite forgotten how exhausted he was. He dragged the largest one he could find next to her and plopped himself down as well. It was curious how pleasant she was beginning to smell. He had found the strange animal smell of humans strong and unpleasant when he had fallen into Telmar – that was blood, he remembered with a shock, Nera’s blood – but the more he had carried Josie, or curled up around her, the nicer she had smelled to him.

‘We should find out what that key opens,’ said Tash.

‘Tomorrow,’ said Josie. ‘I don’t want to do anything that might cause more problems.’

‘What do you think it will open?’

‘Well, a door, or a chest, or something. We haven’t found the wand they used to turn you to stone, or the apples of immortality that the magician talked about, so I expect they will be behind whatever it opens.’

‘It would be useful to turn our enemies into stone. Also to be immortal,’ said Tash enthusiastically.

‘Silly, we can’t do those things,’ said Josie.

‘Why not?’ said Tash.

‘It wouldn’t be right,’ said Josie, in an explanation that wasn’t an explanation. ‘It wouldn’t be right for us to turn people to stone, and it wouldn’t be right for us to live forever.’

‘It wouldn’t be right for anything bad to happen to you,’ said Tash resolutely. ‘Ever again.’

Josie made one of those exasperated noises. ‘You’re very sweet, Tash. But like I said, I don’t want to do anything that might cause problems for the rest of the day. Or anything at all, really. Except maybe have some of those sweetmeats. Is there any of the Turkish delight left?’

‘Turkish delight?’

‘Little cubes of soft stuff, covered with powder.’

‘Yes, rather a lot.’ Tash got up helpfully and returned rather too hastily, giving Josie’s new clothes a solid dusting of white powder when the tray tipped sideways. ‘I am sorry,’ he said.

‘Oh, there is no need to be sorry,’ said Josie, laughing. ‘You saved my life. That gives you every right to cover me with powdered sugar if you want.’

‘Does it?’ Tash asked her. This seemed like a curious custom.

‘Well, no, not really,’ said Josie. ‘I just mean it would be ridiculous of me to complain about a little thing like that, after all the big things you have helped me with.’

Tash sat down next to Josie and together they ate rather a lot of Turkish delight. There were five or six different kinds, of different colours and flavours, some with different chewy lumps in them – ‘nuts’ Josie explained – and they were all ever so much nicer than pickled grith.

‘You saved my life too,’ he pointed out, between mouthfuls of rosewater-flavoured Turkish delight.

‘We don’t know for sure,’ said Josie. ‘It might just have been a coincidence. I certainly didn’t set out to turn you back from stone.’

‘You would have, if you had known,’ said Tash confidently.

‘Very well then,’ said Josie, and flicked powdered sugar at him with her fingers.

Tash and Josie let the fire die, and spread the floor with silken blankets to sleep on, since Josie did not want to go back to the tower where she had slept before, and neither of them wanted to sleep in the bedchamber of Yustus the magician, whose bones were at that moment being fought over by wild dogs. Without either of them saying anything they ended up sleeping much as they had the night before, with Tash curled up around an uncomplaining Josie.

‘Good night, Tash,’ she said.

‘Good night, Josie Miss Furness, Mistress of Telmar,’ he said.

‘Don’t be silly,’ she said, but he could tell she was pleased. He thought, for the hundredth time, that her hair was exactly the colour of fresh grith stalks before they started to turn grey.


	13. The Ruby Key

The next morning Josie’s foot was much better. She had always recovered quickly from cuts and scratches, and she seemed to recover even quicker in this new world. After breakfast she set out with Tash to find the lock that fit the ruby key.

Tash described each room as they came to it, led Josie to the more interesting bits, and looked at any shiny objects that attracted his attention, while Josie carefully felt over the walls, bookcases, chests, and anything else that might conceal a keyhole.

‘He would not want to keep it very far from himself,’ said Josie, feeling impatient and irritable after an hour of searching. ‘So we probably won’t have to go far.’

The hidden door was in fact in the magician’s bedchamber, whose walls were covered with a great deal of elaborately carved panelling. Some of them depicted scenes featuring the woman from the statue in the garden – at least, Josie expected it was the woman from the statue, from Tash’s description – vanquishing various enemies or gesturing grandly, and it was one of these scenes that hid the keyhole. It was the third time Josie had gone over that particular bit of panelling, and she was just about ready to give up and move on to the next room.

‘Imagine putting it just there,’ thought Josie, blushing. ‘What beasts those men of Telmar were.’ She did not call to Tash , who was in the next room clattering the glassware on the bookcases . For some reason she could not explain was already quite sure this was the keyhole that fit the key. Making a sour face, she put the key in and managed to turn it after a bit of wriggling about.

Josie tugged hard on the end of the key, and the whole panel, which went almost to the ceiling, swung open on silent hinges.

‘Here it is,’ she called to Tash.

There was a crash as Tash swept something fragile from the bookcase in his haste to join her, and a moment later he was at her side, peering through the open doorway. The air beyond the panel had the feel of a very large inside space, rather than a little room.

‘It is just a place for hanging garments,’ said Tash, disappointed. ‘There are some robes in bright colours, and some boxes on the floor- maybe there is something interesting in one of them.’ He crouched down and Josie could hear him rummaging in a space that was rather too small for him.

‘It feels like a large room,’ said Josie.

‘No, it isn’t – oh, you are right. Behind the curtain it goes on. There are stairs.’

‘May I?’ asked Josie, and limped past Tash. Sure enough, two sides of the little dressing room were proper stone walls, one was the panel they had swung aside, and the third was a stairway going down, behind a heavy damask curtain. Josie took a few steps down the stairs without thinking; when she did stop, and thought about what she was doing, she felt oddly like she was being pulled through some resistant substance. She felt that there was something fascinating down the stairs, something that she ached with a kind of homesickness to get to. At the same time there was a resistance, like she was trying to wade through waist-deep water, or walk against a strong wind; if she let her feet move idly of their own accord, it was hardly noticeable, but if she thought about taking a step, it made it nearly impossible to go forward.

‘Wait,’ said Tash. ‘It is dark. I will find a light.’

‘Alright,’ said Josie. But she did not end up waiting. She took one step, and then another, down the staircase, and when she heard Tash’s voice again it was quite a way above her.

‘Josie?’

‘Down here,’ said Josie. ‘It is safe.’ She was surprised how safe she felt. The feeling that she was pushing against something had gotten stronger and then abruptly stopped, replaced by a kind of cheerful crispness to the air. It did not smell any different from the air above, but she felt she could breathe more easily. It was as if there was a good magic down here, a good magic that was being held back by the wicked magic of the men of Telmar, and she had just moved into the atmosphere of the good magic from the atmosphere of the wicked magic.

‘Like I have just come out of a stuffy room, instead of going into a cellar,’ she thought.

Long before Tash had returned the wall on one side of Josie had dropped away, and she ran the fingers of her right hand lightly along a balustrade of stone. The stairs were curving gently around the edge of a round room that felt as big as a country hall- big enough to have dances in- and it was filled to the brim with what she was thinking of as good magic. She took a few deep breaths of it.

‘There is something powerful here,’ said Tash, reproaching her. ‘You should not have come alone.’ She could smell the smoke from the lamp he held.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. She took one of his hands. ‘But it feels like something powerful and good, doesn’t it?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Tash.

‘You have to admit it does seem dreadfully like a treasure chamber,’ said Josie.

They reached the bottom of the stairs, and Tash said there was something in the middle of the room, which was also where the sense of good magic felt strongest to Josie. It was a round dais big enough for a string quartet to play on, surrounded by something like an altar rail except in one place where there was a gap, with steps leading onto the dais.

Tash eagerly forged ahead, peering at things. ‘What are those? Armour for humans, I think. There’s something at the top of the steps, in the way. What is it?’

‘’It’s a wooden box,’ said Josie, feeling the curve of the unpolished wood. There was a lid on the box, but it did not fit snugly, and when she sniffed the air she could smell the unmistakeable scent of fresh apples.

‘Apples,’ she said, very softly. ‘There are apples in it.’

A sudden fear came over her. There might be good magic here, but she had never thought of what good magic would really be like. It was a terrible wild good magic, a magic that would think nothing of using her for some greater good, that would weigh her hopes and desires no more than the hopes and desires of a billion billion other beings. It would use her as its instrument until she was blunt and broken, she felt; she would have done good, far more good than she would ever have done on her own, but she would still be broken at the end of it.

Tash had clambered over the railing in another place while Josie examined the box and was exploring the dais. ‘There are two suits of armour, very shiny ones. Maybe one for both kinds of human? And here is a table with food and drink. It’s very strange, it seems perfectly good.’

‘Don’t touch it,’ said Josie.

‘I won’t,’ said Tash obediently. ‘Oh, and there are two shields here, with pictures of lions on them, and some swords. I can feel the magic, Josie; it’s a kind of magic that keeps things from decaying, I think, everything seems perfectly new even though it must have been down here a long time.’

‘Let’s go,’ said Josie.

‘And there is a – yes.’ Tash climbed back over the railing and joined Josie where she stood a few paces back from the dais.

‘What was in the box?’ he asked.

‘More food,’ said Josie. ‘Kept perfectly good by magic, like you found.’

‘Are you sure you want to go? There is so much, and we have not found the wand, or the apples.’

‘We can come back here any time,’ she said.

‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘I think there is something wrong with the lamp, anyway.’

Even as she left, Josie felt the same homesick longing to remain in the hidden chamber, nearly as strong as the fear that drove her away from it. It was the same as when she had first heard the name of Aslan, the name she could still not bring herself to say aloud.

***

‘They didn’t seem at all the things the men of Telmar would have made, so I expect it is from when the Lion was here,’ Josie told Tash, when they were sitting comfortably upstairs again. Tash had not felt the magic of the treasure chamber as strongly as Josie, only enough to make the experience feel even more splendid and adventurous. Even the climb back, when the lamp had given out and Josie had had to guide him up the stairs, had been a great adventure. He had seen magic do so many terrible things in the past few days, and it was cheering to see magic used to do things that were beautiful and useful instead.

‘After he turned the people here into beasts, he must have left these things behind, with the good magic to preserve them. Until the next bit of his story.’ Josie looked very wise and regal as she said these things, Tash thought.

‘What use would a lion have for armour and weapons? And human sorts of food?’

‘Maybe the two suits of armour are for two heroes who are supposed to come here. And the food could be magic food that they are supposed to eat, or give to someone else. In the stories the gazelles told, the Lion would be there to explain it to them, so it would make sense. I don’t know much about this Lion, but if he did leave those things there I think we should leave them alone. Yustus seemed to have left them alone. I think he was probably afraid to touch them.’

Tash considered this. If this lion god was even a very little bit like the Overlord Varkarian, it would be foolish to meddle in his plans. That must be why Josie had wanted them to leave, before they could accidentally disturb anything.

‘You think it is dangerous,’ he said. ‘I think so too.’ He took one of her hands and rubbed it to show how much he agreed with her.

She nodded, ‘We can look there again, and maybe if we are in desperate trouble there is something there we can use, but I think we should leave that place alone.’ She retrieved her hand to do something with her hair. Tash watched admiringly as she arranged it away from her face and tied it back.

‘This is the first real sign of good magic that we have seen ourselves here, though,’ Josie said when she was done. A note of uncertainty came into her voice. ‘Maybe we should make plans to travel to this Prince Margis who the gazelles wanted me to see, who I was trying to get to before.’ She bit her lip. ‘But, he is supposed to be coming here. Maybe the gazelles were wrong, and I’m not meant to warn him away from this place, but meet him here.’

‘Then it would make sense for all the magic things to be here,’ agreed Tash.

Josie sighed. ‘You’d think, if we were part of a prophecy in a fairy tale, it would be explained to us so we knew what to do.’

‘Do you think I am part of the prophecy too?’ asked Tash hopefully.

‘I don’t know that is something to wish for,’ said Josie, smiling at Tash. ‘I get the feeling it is like being a tool – in a prophecy you are just an instrument for someone else to use, without caring how you feel about it.’

Tash bowed his head and drooped his arms, just a little. ‘That is what life is, I thought.’

‘Poor Tash,’ said Josie, taking one of his hands in two of hers.

‘I still wonder where those apples of immortality are,’ Tash wondered aloud.

‘Oh,’ Josie said slowly. ‘They’re around here somewhere. I’m sure we’ll find them. Now,’ she continued more briskly. ‘You were going to tell me your story.’

Tash supposed he could. She had told him all of her story, after all, and he would have to tell her about Nera sooner or later.

‘I was always told I was useless,’ Tash began, and recounted his story very much as you have read it here.

‘Oh, Tash,’ said Josie when he had finished, putting her arms around his neck. ‘It is too terrible. That poor girl. Don’t worry, it will be better now.’ And she kissed his beak again. Tash thought again how strangely pleasant she smelled.

***

The next few months were the nicest months of Tash’s life. The fresh food soon ran out, but there was plenty of stored food of the kind that keeps practically forever. Josie became quite good at cooking in the old-fashioned clay ovens in the kitchen of Telmar, and everything they had to eat was very much nicer than pickled grith. The air was too dry, but Tash could have hot baths every day, as often as he liked. They found early on a way down from the castle to the forest that only involved clearing a few brambles away and breaking through one rather poorly bricked-in doorway, so they could go down every now and again. Tash found he had a talent for hunting the black pigs that roamed in the forest, and the wild dogs learned to give them a wide berth; they gathered nuts and fruit and wild onions, and there was a deep pool downstream of the castle where they could catch delicious silvery fishes. On these trips they formed a fair idea of the place they were in. On three sides the valley where the castle lay was bounded by high country- not terribly high mountains, but tall enough to be dusted with snow long before the valley floor. On the fourth side it fell away downward in a tumbled way, with no very great obstacles as far as the limits of their expeditions, half-a-day’s Tash walk from the castle. The stream began in a waterfall some distance to the north of the castle, looped around it, and then a little way below the fishing pool descended steep rapids into a gorge. All of the valley was thickly overgrown with cypress trees, with no clearings of any size. The traces of whatever fields and roads the men of Telmar once had were entirely effaced by time.

Tash and Josie made these trips more seldom after the first snow fell, but then there was exploring of the castle to be done: it had been the living place of scores of the men of Telmar before they became so deplorably wicked, and although much of it was half ruined – roofless and overgrown with weeds – there were no end of intact halls and passages to explore, with secret underground passages and doors that had been locked for generations.

So Tash had an abundance of things to find out about, and felt himself to be abundantly useful in helping Josie, whose life he had saved: Josie, who trusted him with responsibilities, and shared all she had with him, and touched him kindly, and became more pleasing to his senses day by day, and never once said that he was completely and utterly useless. He did not complain that she did not want to visit the hidden room with the magic food and the suits of armour again, for she was after all Mistress of Telmar, and he felt joy in doing what she wanted.

 

It would not be quite true to say that these months were the nicest of Josie’s life. There had been many uncomplicated months of her life before her family’s troubles had begun, and even months afterward that had not seemed particularly noteworthy at the time, but in hindsight now seemed perfect, and she thought back on those as the happiest months of her life. She had of course at first been almost dizzy with joy at not being a prisoner of the wicked magician any more, with a horrible fate creeping closer day by day: but that sort of happiness never lasts as long as you think it will.

Josie had all she needed in the castle of Telmar. She was safe, and comfortable, and her memories of home had faded so that she hardly ever thought about Gerry, or her mother, and did not feel sad. She almost never quarrelled with Tash, who treated her with affection and respect, but she did not like keeping the secret of the apples from him. She knew in her bones that it would be wrong to use the apples, and she knew in her bones that Tash was different from her in this way, and did not have this same knowledge. Sometimes she would open the secret panel with the ruby key, but never went further than the first few steps, where she could just start to feel the call of the good magic. Josie had a nagging feeling of guilt that she was going down the wrong path and was somehow not doing something she was supposed to be doing.

Then there was the other matter with Tash. She had allowed herself liberties with him at the beginning that she would never have allowed from a boy, thinking of him as a kind of talking animal. And it was true, she supposed, that he was. But he was the only one of his kind of creature here, and she was the only one of her kind of creature, and when he touched her she had begun to feel so particularly a female sort of creature. He had first curled up around her to keep her warm, and to comfort her, and she had welcomed him. He would be terribly hurt if she were to insist that he stop now. But the habit of sleeping together was one that she knew had become wrong, as she became more aware of his maleness, and she often spent the nights in an agitated state, half enduring and half enjoying his embrace. Being blind, Josie had a very sensitive sense of touch, and her touch had been starved for the feel of living things: it felt so very good to touch someone, to be touched in return. So she had let Tash’s unknowing hands stray to places she would have driven a human boy’s hands from with furious blushes.

‘He is devoted to me in his way,’ Josie told herself, sternly. ‘He is as fine a friend as any I could ask for, and the only friend I have in this world. It would not be fair to push him away because of things that I feel, because I am confused. It is complicated, but life is complicated. It would be just as bad if a Prince had rescued me. Worse, because though he would know where the bounds of proper behaviour were, they might not be at all the same here as in Australia. And being a Prince he would probably be used to people doing whatever he wanted to regardless. And furthermore, he would expect me to be grateful – which I would be – and happy to be lorded over – which I wouldn’t, instead of being as accommodating as Tash is. I expect he would probably expect me to marry him straightaway, like in the fairy stories.’ These were the sort of things Josie told herself.

So Josie was troubled, but she let things keep on going the way they were going. Much more trouble is drifted into in such a way then ever results from people boldly charging in and doing something recklessly wicked.


	14. The Broken Wand

‘We might not have to worry about being tempted to turn people into stone,’ said Josie. She held up the two halves of finely-made ivory wand that she had found in a drawer in the magician’s bedchamber. It had been a hidden drawer with a very cunningly hidden catch, and she felt very pleased that she had managed to find it. ‘Is this the one that turned you to stone, Tash?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Tash, looming up behind her in a comforting warm way. As she handed him the fragments, she could tell how nervous he was. ‘It could be,’ he said dubiously. ‘Or it could be another one. I did not get a very good look at it.’

‘Don’t worry, Tash,’ she said gently. ‘Nobody’s going to turn you back to stone.’

‘I know,’ said Tash.

How melancholy he sounds, Josie thought. She had become quite good at telling the moods of his strange unmusical voice. She supposed he must be thinking of the past, and all the horrid things that had happened to him. ‘I expect it is the one. If he could have turned me to stone and back again easily, I expect he would have, to save himself the trouble. This must have been important, to have been kept in such a well-hidden place, and we have not found any other wands.’

‘But we haven’t found the apples, either,’ Tash said. ‘So the most secret places of the magician are still secret. From us.’

Josie almost told him about the apples then, since he was so clearly ill at ease. But she paused too long thinking of what to say, and Tash turned away. ‘I am itching. I’m going to bathe.’

‘I wonder how it was broken,’ said Josie softly, putting the pieces of the wand back in the drawer.

 

Another improper habit Josie and Tash had gotten into was the habit of sitting at the side of each other’s baths and chatting. Josie had not complained the first time Tash had walked in on her bathing – after all, he was naked all the time, and did not seem to think anything of it – and it was another of those liberties which, once taken, cannot be easily taken back. So when Tash went to the great tiled pool that was heated by some artifice of the ifrits to soften his itchy thalarka skin, Josie followed, and sat on the edge of it dabbling her feet.

‘Are you thinking about Nera?’ she asked softly, after they had sat their silently together for a few minutes.

‘No. Yes. I don’t know,’ said Tash. There were splashings as he immersed himself further.

When Josie thought of it, it seemed that Tash had been out of sorts for a few days. Some sadness had gotten hold of him. God knew their future was uncertain enough that it was easy to get stuck in gloomy thoughts. Or maybe he was getting ill. He had been indoors a lot since winter began, with the air too dry from the fire making his skin itch, and there might well be any number of things in this world that disagreed with him.

‘Do you feel well?’ she asked him.

He sat up with a great sloshing of water. ‘I think so.’

Josie decided to change the subject. ‘It was good to get out yesterday. That dog was peculiar though, wasn’t it? If I didn’t know better, I would almost believe it was a talking dog.’

‘It didn’t talk,’ Tash observed.

‘Yes,’ said Josie, splashing a little water at Tash with her foot. ‘I know that. But it didn’t behave at all like the dogs usually do. It seemed like it wanted to tell us something. I thought for a moment it was going to lick my hand. It was close enough that I could feel its breath.’

They had gone outside the castle that day for the first time in a few weeks. It had been a day that was warm enough to give them hope that winter was turning to spring, and the stones along the river were entirely free of snow, while the rest of the forest had a slushy dishevelled appearance. Even though Tash had not caught a pig, and there had been little in the way of nuts to gather, they had been glad to get outside for a time. Then there had been the dog.

‘I just had the peculiar feeling it was trying to tell me something, but it didn’t know how,’ said Josie. ‘Maybe it isn’t from around here, and came into the valley from somewhere else.’

‘It looked like the other dogs,’ said Tash.

Josie supposed Tash was right, even as she splashed him again. Except for acting in such a strange way it had been exactly like all the other wild dogs in the valley, the ones that Zardeenah had said were descended from the men of Telmar who had been transformed by Aslan.

‘Do you think maybe it can think, like a regular talking animal, and is trapped without being able to talk? That would be terrible.’ She shuddered a little at the thought. ‘Maybe next time it will be there again, and we could figure out what it wants.’

Tash was vaguely drifting off again, Josie could tell, not paying any attention to what she was saying. It was probably just as well, she thought, since the dog was not turning out to be a cheering thing to talk about either.

‘Tash?’

He did not say anything in return, so she splashed him once again. This time, he responded by grabbing her ankle and pulling her irresistibly into the water.

‘Hey!’ she said, spluttering. ‘Why did you that?’ Beneath her feet she could feel Tash’s powerful legs, and her blouse floated up around her armpits.

‘I’m sorry, Josie’ said Tash meekly. ‘I don’t know.’

‘I was just trying to distract you,’ said Josie. ‘You seemed sad.’

‘I’m better now,’ promised Tash, unconvincingly. Josie began to clamber out of the bath.

‘Why don’t you bathe with me?’ asked Tash. ‘There is plenty of room.’

‘It wouldn’t be right,’ said Josie, sitting herself back on the edge.

‘Why?’ asked Tash.

‘Because, you are a boy, and I am a girl.’ She felt her cheeks warming.

‘It is strange for me to think of you as a girl, because you do not speak women’s language,’ said Tash. ‘You are simply Josie. You are not like the girls of the thalarka.’

‘You are not like the boys of my people, either,’ said Josie, truthfully.

‘Do you wonder,’ said Tash after a moment, in what seemed to Josie a plaintive way. ‘That maybe the speaking magic has got it wrong? All we know is that the word I say as ‘girl’ in my language does not fit me, but fits you, but maybe it is the other way around. Maybe we are both the same kind, or two of four kinds that are completely different, and the magic language has gotten confused.’

‘That-‘ said Josie, and paused. She did not know for sure that Tash had any of the particular attributes that she knew men to have. He did not seem to have any of the attributes that women had. Maybe he was right, and they were just two completely different sorts of creature, and it was ridiculous for her to feel the way she had been feeling. But short of asking Tash to describe himself, which she could not bring herself to do, she had no way of knowing. She pulled her knees up to her chest, since it was cold sitting around in soaking wet clothes. ‘Maybe you are right.’

‘I do not know, but it could be,’ said Tash. ‘You look cold. You should come in the water.’

Jose laughed. ‘My dunking seems to have cheered you up, anyways. No, I will go and get dry, and see about making tea.’

‘Yes, Josie,’ said Tash.

***

Tash watched Josie go, casting long distorted Josie shadows on the tiled floor. He wanted to be with her all the time, to see her and smell her and touch her, but he did not think it wise to tell her this. He hoped his friend was not displeased with him. He had not meant to be bothersome, and had told the truth when he said he did not know why he had been out of sorts. Things just seemed more irksome than they usually were. He found it hard to sit still, and the castle seemed close and stuffy: the trip outside the day before should have made this better, but it had only made it seem more like a cage when they were back in. If he had been you or me he would have thought that all the horrible things that had been done in the castle of Telmar, and all the foul magics, had seeped into the stone of the place and poisoned its sprit, and he would have been right: but Tash did not think this. For every acre of the world of the thalarka, where he had come from, had been filled with cruelty and evil magic for thousands of years.

‘Don’t be foolish, Tash,’ he told himself. ‘This is the best place you have ever been in, and there is no reason for it to change, so you should be happy.’

But there were other people on this world, he recalled, and this castle was a splendid thing to have. They needed to be ready to defend this place if anyone came to take it from them. To take it from Josie, Mistress of Telmar. He would feel better if they had found the wand for turning people into stone. Or something else that was powerful and magic. He did not like the dog that he had pretended not to be interested in. It was something new, coming when they had everything sorted out, and might be the first of other new things that would upset everything. If he saw the dog when Josie wasn’t looking, he would chase it away, he promised himself.

‘Maybe it is more foolish not to worry about things changing,’ Tash said to himself, letting himself sink back into the water, resolved to hold on to what he had with all that was in his power.

***

That night Tash held Josie close, and played with her hair with one hand, and rubbed her arm with another hand, sometimes up to the shoulder, and rubbed her leg with yet another hand, sometimes up to the top of her thigh. His hands did not do these things as if he were making love to her, but only every now and again, because he wanted to feel the Josieness of her and keep her close to him. But Josie felt herself warming all over, and swell in hidden places that she could not name, and she let herself be patted by Tash’s almost-human thalarka hands until she started to tremble, and then she suddenly twisted out of Tash’s embrace.

‘This won’t do, Tash,’ she said.

‘What?’ said Tash, not so very puzzled.

‘We should not be doing this.’

‘Because you are a girl and I am a boy?’ said Tash.

‘I don’t know if it would matter what we were,’ Josie sat up and smoothed out her nightdress. ‘We should not be doing this sort of thing at all, unless we were betrothed.’

‘Could we be that?’ asked Tash, hopefully.

‘No,’ said Josie. ‘You would have to be human, and I would have to be a good deal older.’

‘Oh,’ said Tash. This did not seem fair; but then, very little in the universe ever had.

‘I ought to sleep at a distance from you. There are enough blankets to keep us warm in this place.’

‘I will help you,’ said Tash, submitting to his fate. He got up uncomplainingly and began to help Josie set up another bed of blankets on the other side of the fireplace.

‘I will do what you say,’ said Tash, when a cosy bed of blankets had been made for Josie at the other side of the room. ‘But it is only because we are not that thing, and not because you wish me to go?’

‘Of course I don’t wish you to go,’ said Josie. ‘You are my true friend.’

‘Thank you,’ said Tash. ‘You are my true friend also.’

When they had said goodnight to each other again Tash settled back down, feeling reassured by Josie’s promise. He would go out the next day and try hunting again, he told himself, and bring back a pig for Josie, and they have as much roast pork as they could eat. He felt the warmth that Josie had left in the blankets and drew comfort from the animal smell of her, the smell that had once been so strange and was now so familiar.

Josie lay uneasily in her still cool new bed, feeling bad for pushing Tash away. The way he had accepted his rejection made her feel worse. She did not want to lord over him as Mistress of Telmar, but be his friend and companion on whatever strange adventures they were to have in this world.

‘Tash?’

‘Yes, Josie?’

‘There is something I have to tell you.’ She sat up again.

‘The apples – I know where they are,’ she said. ‘They are in the hidden chamber, preserved by the same magic that preserves the other things there. I saw them when we went down there.’

‘Oh,’ said Tash.

‘I hope you will forgive me, dear Tash. I was worried about telling, because, well, I suppose if I tell the truth I did not yet trust you entirely. But now I trust you entirely.’ And as she said these words she knew they were true.

‘It is good,’ said Tash. ‘The more secrets of this place we know, the stronger we will be.’

‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,’ said Josie.

‘It was right of you not to tell me until you were sure,’ said Tash.

‘Thank you, dear Tash,’ said Josie. She felt uncomfortably that Tash was just accepting whatever she did because she was Josie, Mistress of Telmar. And she still felt just as breathless and excited as she had when she had wriggled out of Tash’s arms. She lay as still as she could and tried to think of calming things that were not warm and strong and scented of jasmine.

‘Josie?’

‘Yes, Tash?’

‘I am glad that we will be together.’

‘Me too,’ said Josie.

‘I would not like ever to be apart from you.’

‘I would not like ever to be apart from you, either,’ said Josie, turning over.

I suppose this means that Tash and I are betrothed after a fashion, she thought, when she considered what they had just said to one another. It was a very awkward thought, but not an entirely unpleasant one. Holding it in her mind and considering it from different directions she eventually drifted off to sleep.


	15. The Books of Tash

It was a few weeks later, and while Tash went further afield hunting, Josie was by the stream making an effort to befriend the dog who behaved so curiously unlike the other wild dogs of Telmar. It had at last come close enough for her to pet it. It was not a well-groomed animal, like the house dogs at home, and it had the coarse long hair of an outside dog at the end of a cold winter, but it did not seem to be ill-fed or ill, nor like the wild beasts in the fables that come up to young ladies to have thorns removed from their paws. No, it seemed to be genuinely seeking out Josie’s company, and as if it had something to say. It was nervous even after coming up to Josie, perking to attention at every little sound in the forest and once or twice darting away from Josie and needing to be coaxed back. After she had sat for a time talking to the dog and stroking it, and her feet were starting to feel the chill, Josie hit upon an idea.

‘I think you can understand what I say, dog,’ she told the dog. ‘If you can understand what I say, lick my hand.’

The dog licked her hand.

‘Do you think you could you lick my hand to mean ‘yes’, and not lick my hand to mean ‘no’?’

The dog licked Josie’s hand again.

‘Oh, good dog,’ she said. Though dogs do just lick people’s hands out of friendliness, I suppose, she thought. She asked the dog a few questions to test it. ‘Am I a gazelle?’ The dog left her hand alone.

‘Am I a dog?’ No.

‘Am I a human?’ Yes.

Josie scratched the dog behind the ears, and began to ask it questions in earnest.

‘Do you need our help?’ Yes. ‘Do you need us to help change you into a person?’ No. ‘Do you- do you need us to help you find something?’ A long pause, and then a yes. ‘Do you need us to help you find something- somewhere else?’ Another long pause and finally a yes. Josie wondered what made these uncertain questions, and thought for a while. The sound of the stream was a calming one, but somehow made it hard to think. ‘Do you need us to find someone outside the valley?’ A very definite lick. ‘Will you come into the castle with us? We have roast pork.’ The dog hesitated.

There was a crackling of branches, and the dog darted away from Josie. She could hear Tash’s heavy footsteps, and as he drew nearer smell the heady stink of newly gutted boar. The dog slunk further away, and she could no longer hear its footsteps clearly.

‘Hush, Tash, you’re scaring the dog away,’ she said, in a tone of mild reproach. She could tell that Tash was suspicious of the dog- it was hardly surprising, from Tash’s story, that he should be suspicious of most everything- but she wished he would be a little more friendly towards it. Dogs could tell when people didn’t like them, she knew.

‘I am very sorry,’ said Tash. ‘Would it like a bit of pig?’ Josie heard Tash rend a gobbet of flesh from the boar’s inside and toss it into the bush where the dog was lurking.

‘It doesn’t seem to be coming back,’ said Josie, after they had stood listening to the bush expectantly for quite some time. ‘Oh well. I expect it will be back later. I am quite certain it is a talking dog that doesn’t talk, Tash. It answered my questions, and I figured out that it wants us to help it meet someone somewhere.’

‘That is a beginning,’ said Tash. ‘Do you want me to carry you back?’

‘No, thank you,’ said Josie. ‘You carry the pig, and I will follow. I do sort of know the way.’

She stood up and wiggled her cold toes to try and get the feeling back into them, then walked with Tash back to the hidden door in the cliff and the shadowed stairs that led onto the grounds of the castle, telling him as they walked of what the dog had told her.

‘There are bad dogs, and there are good dogs, Tash,’ she told him. ‘I am quite sure that this one is a good dog, whatever else it may be.’

***

That night the moon was full, and Tash was restless. He did not like sleeping alone, and found it more difficult to avoid unpleasant thoughts. He had seen something that day, while he was out hunting, that troubled him, and that he had not wanted to speak of to Josie. He had seen its tracks in the earth, first: great paw prints, many times larger than the paws of the dogs. Then he had seen the beast itself, on the other side of the stream from him, atop a boulder so that its feet were higher than Tash’s head. It had not made any sound that could be heard above the chattering of the stream: but it had looked at Tash, and he had known it was a talking beast, and a creature of power. He was sure it was the sort of creature called a lion, the sort whose stone head the statue of the Queen held, and he was sure it had wanted to speak to him: but he had turned and walked quickly away in the other direction before it could say anything.

Eventually Tash gave up and went quietly out of the rooms he shared with Josie to go exploring. He prowled about the inside hallways for a time, but he knew them all well, and found nothing new to explore, so he then ventured outside. He went from one garden courtyard to another, feeling just as restless as he had lying on the floor trying to sleep, and then further afield, to one of the ruined parts of the castle of Telmar he had had not gotten around to exploring before. Most of the walls there were only piles of rubble, covered with masses of dead thistles left over from the summer before. It smelled, Tash realised, a very little like the world of the thalarka – which was probably another reason he had not explored it before. Unlike Josie, he had not yet been homesick in the slightest.

Beyond one of the shapeless mounds of rubble, Tash was surprised to find a ring of reasonably intact walls, and in one of these walls he found a door that was even less ruined by time. It hung true, and was not cracked or weathered, and seemed to Tash almost as well-preserved as the things in the hidden room beneath the evil magician’s bedroom. ‘There are probably more useful magic things behind it,’ he said, finding the thought cheering. With an effort, he reminded himself that there could well be dangers behind it as well.

The door was of wood, but wood that was so dark and fine-grained and obviously heavy that it might as well have been iron. Tash pushed it without really expecting it to open; but it swung open readily. Beyond the door was a roofless gallery. At one side tall windows let in more moonlight, while the other was cut into the side of the hill, with a great archway leading into it like a hungry mouth. It was wide enough and tall enough to accommodate a giant many times Tash’s height.

Tash had taken a lamp with him in case he found anything he wanted to look at more closely, and though he had not yet had great luck either at lighting them or at keeping them lit, this time a tiny flicker of yellow fire had survived while he carried the lamp about the ruins, and it sprang helpfully into full brightness when he fiddled with it. ‘I will just have a look, and if there is anything interesting, I can come back with Josie in the morning,’ Tash said to himself.

Tash had not taken very many steps down the tunnel before he had the oddest feeling that it was a thing that went on forever, with no beginning and no end. The air smelt strange and felt thin, as if it was missing something important that air was supposed to have. Tash found himself labouring over each breath as if he had been running. An odd whispering sound echoed around him, a sound like people hiding in darkened corners telling each other secrets in a language he did not understand.

The light of the lamp went only a short way into the darkness. Like the darkness below the Procurator’s Tower, it seemed not so much the absence of light as the active exclusion of light. Thus when Tash came to the door in the side of the tunnel, he did not see it until it was unexpectedly and uncomfortably close. This door was different from the other doors in the castle of Telmar, disappearing into the darkness above Tash, but its handle was only a little higher than would be convenient for someone Josie’s size. It was of some polished wood that still gleamed even after standing underground for who knows how many years, and on it someone had made a complicated picture out of countless little pieces of stone.

The picture was of a tall, white figure which was either wearing a floor-length robe or had no legs. Tash was not sure which. He also could not tell if the long drooping protuberances on its head were part of it, or meant to be some sort of hat. It was the figure’s expression that made him feel most uneasy: feet or not, and hat or not, it looked like the sort of person who would consider Tash even less than useless; who would not notice him, even if Tash brought it splendid gifts, or fought fearful enemies for it. Tash shivered under the pressure of the arrogant eyes of the picture, and hastily moved on without trying the handle.

Each doorway Tash passed – and he passed many of them, until he lost count – had a picture like this with a different figure displayed in it. Though they varied a great deal, none of them seemed to be the sort of people who would pay the slightest bit of attention to Tash. Tash decided that the things on their heads had to be hats. He moved uneasily past these unpleasant figures, accompanied only by the echoed shufflings of his own feet.

His lamp seemed to be more effectively piercing the gloom, and Tash caught sight of a door a little way ahead that stood partly open. Without meaning to, Tash began to walk more slowly. He had been hurried along by the unpleasant pictures on the doors, and only just realised how far he had come underground and how much trouble he could be in if things went wrong. ‘I hope there isn’t one of those legless hat-wearing people inside,’ Tash told himself.

When he came to the open door, Tash saw at once that it was different from all the others that he had passed thus far. The front was blank, with no picture, and Tash had the impression that this room was waiting for someone. The long hallway with the doors coming off it had very much the feel of an immense tomb, like the ones the Procurators of the Overlord were supposed to be buried in, so maybe it was that a hat-wearing figure was meant to be buried here, and had not yet died when Telmar came to end. ‘Though they do not look very much like the men of Telmar,’ he said to himself.

Cautiously, Tash peered around the door, and was relieved to see that the room inside was empty. It was not large, and was furnished with a table and chair made in the same way as the furniture in the intact parts of the castle. Though very large compared to the furniture elsewhere in the castle, the table and chair were only a little too high to be comfortable for Tash. On the table lay two immense books.

There were grand symbols in gold on the cover of the first book, like strange insects that had crawled on it and been squashed there. As Tash looked at them, they seemed to writhe around like the geometric theorems he had seen carved in stone in the world of the almost-thalarka. Suddenly, with a wrenching sensation inside a little like the feeling of falling between worlds, he found that he could read them.

He froze still in astonishment.

‘The Book of Tash,’ said Tash aloud in wonder, and his words echoed about the chamber like his footsteps had in the hallway outside, repeating over and over. ‘Tash…ash….ash…ash….shh….sh…’

He craned his neck over to look at the cover of the other book. This one had symbols like astrological diagrams worked on it in red and black gems, and as he looked at them they too twisted in his mind to become words he could understand. They read the same: The Book of Tash.

It had to be some other Tash, Tash thought, for it was impossible that someone had written not one, but two books about him. Perhaps Tash was a name the men of Telmar had used. Then it struck him that these might be magical books, and therefore very dangerous, like most magical things. It could surely do no good at all to open the covers to see what was written inside. ‘I should go back to Josie, and we can come back together and have a look if she thinks it is a good idea,’ Tash told himself. ‘Yes.’ But he stayed standing by the table, and did not go back out the open door.

The problem was that Tash very much wanted to see what was in the book, so he could assure himself that it really was not written about him. So he did what Josie or I would have done if we were in his position – and which you would probably not have done, being in all likelihood more level-headed. Tash reached out with both hands to turn back the front cover of the first book to see what was written inside. Like the words on the cover, the words within began as a chaos of fragmented shapes, but as Tash watched them they writhed into forms that Tash could understand.

‘Know then, O seeker after enlightenment, that Tash was told always that his uselessness was of a kind utter and complete,’ read Tash. ‘In a voice enlightened and gleaming with accuracy, the father of Tash would pronounce his uselessness perfect in its completeness, and to this assertion his brothers and sisters and mothers would voice agreement after the manner of their kind. Then lowly Tash would bow his head, and accede humbly to the pronouncement of his betters.’

 

A chill crept over Tash, and his skin itched with the dryness of the air. This was a strange and a strong magic indeed.

‘I should go back to Josie,’ he told himself. But despite this, he read to the end of the page, and then the next, and the next. He had seen strange and strong magic before: magic that had thrown him from world to world, and turned him to stone, and this book did not seem like it could possibly be as dreadful as those magics. Besides, it was very interesting to read his story all written out in words. It somehow seemed grander and more exciting, and Tash himself more heroic and clever than he had felt while he was actually doing all those things.

Tash had expected that when he got up to the part in the story where he was sitting and reading the magical book, it would stop and he would not learn anything about what happened next. The other possibility that had occurred to him was that it might repeat over and over, a book within a book, and then another book within that one, so that unless he was careful he would be trapped reading his own story forever. Neither of these things happened. The story went on. Page after page after page, relentlessly recounting all the things that would happen to Tash after he had read this book.

‘No!’ Tash cried aloud, and the word echoed in the long darkness of the hallway.

This could not be his story. He achieved things in the book that were worthy of recording in a book, good things, even heroic things that saved thousands of people, but his great deeds were forgotten and ignored, the credit for them taken by others. The life of Tash in the book was a bleak and long one, in which nothing was ever again as easy or pleasant as it was now, and where he spent his old age lonely, sick, and useless.

‘This is a stupid book,’ Tash said. Impatient and uneasy, he climbed up on the chair and examined the next book of Tash. This book, too, told his story, in the same grand style as the first one. He did not bother to read it all, but flipped quickly through the pages of this one to see how it ended. In this book he also did great things, but also terrible things, awful things he could not imagine himself doing. He was feared. He was powerful, as great as an Overlord. But still he was alone.

He recoiled from the hateful books, stepping down from the chair so hastily that it fell over, and backed away from the table.

‘You have to choose,’ said a voice from behind him. It was a voice like gold and honey and wine and stone. It did not echo in the emptiness like Tash’s voice had echoed. It did not seem like it could have been made by any ordinary living thing, but only by a god. Tash turned and stared. In the flickering light of the lamp the great lion seemed almost to glow with his own light. He was bigger than the statue Josie had said was of a creature that was like a lion; much bigger. And his head did not have an expression of idiot malice, but something far more terrifying. It was love as Josie had felt it in the chamber of the ruby key: a love that was a love for uncountable billions of billions, ready to sacrifice itself for the good of the many, ready to sacrifice Tash – sadly, lovingly, but without an instant’s hesitation – for the good of the many.

‘Those are both horrible,’ said Tash, heedless of the fact that he was speaking in rather an insolent way to a god. ‘Neither of them have Josie in them.’

‘Josie only comes into your story for a little while,’ said the lion in a voice that was heavy with sorrow, as if he was in some way as sorry as Tash was that this was so.

‘Why?’ asked Tash.

‘No one is ever told any stories but their own, Tash,’ said Aslan. ‘You do not belong in this world. You have come into it by an accident. Good can still come of your being here, if you chose it so. But you are not of this place, and can never be.’

‘Josie doesn’t belong here either,’ Tash protested. ‘Why can’t she be in my story?’

‘Josie will be sent back to her own world when her time has come.’

‘But why? Why does Josie have to go? Why can’t I go with her?’ Tash’s pleas grew less like a human voice, more unearthly, a shrieking almost-wail that you or I would find terrifying to hear on a dark night.

‘You are only free to choose these two things,’ said Aslan. ‘Other men and beasts, and powers greater than men or beasts, have used their freedom to make choices that have bound the choices of others: and this has created the world in which you must choose one of two paths.’ The voice of the lion god was the voice of someone who understood Tash’s pain, who felt it as he did himself.

Tash was silent, but his eyes burned with hurt. He did not understand. It was not fair. He did not want someone else to feel his pain. He did not want someone else to feel his pain and make him suffer it regardless. He had always disliked prophecies and riddles and arguments about the meaning of life, and what the lion god was saying seemed to be all three at once.

‘You need to lead Josie from this place,’ said Aslan. ‘The girl is the only one who can restore the trust that has been broken between men and beasts in these lands, and restore the evil that was done in this place by the Men of Telmar. The sooner she begins, the greater her success will be.’

Tash remembered this from the story he had read in the book with the golden letters on the cover, but dimly, as if it was a story that he had been told many years before. All the details of the stories in the two books were fading from his mind, with only the stark choice presented to him of two grim futures without Josie remaining vivid.

‘If you want her to go, why don’t you tell her yourself?’ Tash asked Aslan.

‘She is not willing to hear me yet,’ said Aslan. ‘But she will hear you. She will follow you, if you take her on this path. But it is not in her nature to choose of her own will to take this path, not yet. Long ago the Men of Telmar did great evil here, sacrificing their own children to seek to prolong their own lives by magic. I turned them into mute beasts then. It is time for their descendants to take their places as speaking beasts: but to do this they will need your help. You have already met the one I have chosen to bring them back. You must lead her, and Josie, to the land of men, to the city of Balan. They will work together with companions they will find there, and then the beasts of Telmar will speak. What is greater, the trust that has been lost between beasts and men in these lands will be remade anew. It will be as it was meant to be in the beginning, and the stain of many evils will be washed away at last.’

The words of the quest Aslan described echoed things Tash dimly remembered reading, sacrifices the Tash of the books would make, deeds he would do that would be remembered as the deeds of others.

‘But I will not be with Josie,’ said Tash.

‘You will not be with Josie.’ The Lion shook his great maned head. ‘Your story is a long one, and Josie only comes into it for a little time.’

Tash bowed his head. He let his arms droop. He felt the unbearable golden presence of the lion like the noon sun in the sky above Telmar, blinding him, parching his skin. He took a long breath, choking back the desire to sob and throw himself on the ground. Then, slowly, he raised his head, straightened his arms, and spoke in a voice that was as calm and human-sounding as he could make it.

‘I will find another way,’ said Tash.

‘There is a little time to change your mind,’ said Aslan. ‘But soon the choice will be made, one way or another. Lead Josie from this place, and set your course toward Balan.’

‘I will find another way,’ said Tash, with determination.

‘We will meet again,’ said Aslan, and bowed his head slightly at Tash, a curiously humble gesture for the lion-god to make to someone so unimportant as Tash. It seemed to Tash as he did so that his eyes were glistening, as if they were brimming with tears.

Tash stood still, letting his eyes focus on nothing. He was happy here. Why did it have to end? Why did his story need to have dropped him in the middle of some vast tangled prophecy?

‘You must go now,’ said Aslan. ‘Josie will be frightened.’

‘Of what?’ asked Tash.

As if in reply, there was a low, deep-throated rumble that Tash thought at first was the lion growling, but which soon seemed to come from all directions. The stone beneath Tash’s feet began to tremble, and dust ran in little streams from cracks in the ceiling.

‘We must go,’ said Aslan. ‘Follow me.’

The lion began to walk down the great hallway, unhurriedly but swiftly, and Tash ran along behind.

The floor shook beneath him like it was a wooden floor hanging from ropes, instead of a stone floor carved into the side of a mountain, and he found it hard to stay upright. The lion kept pace just ahead of him, too vast and too golden and too god-like.

Tash shook the lamp too much, and it went out, but far ahead Tash could see a half-moon of light, and he broke into a full run. He came out into the roofless gallery, and no more than a few seconds later the hillside above the arched entrance to the tunnel gave way, burying it beneath thousands of tonnes of stone and earth and trees with a tremendous crash. When the noise of the landslide had died away, Tash realised that the earth was still again. There was no trace of the lion.

Blocks of masonry had fallen from the walls of the gallery, and the heavy door of wood like iron that he had come through had been twisted off its hinges and lay covered in broken fragments of stone.

Tash ran back to the rooms he shared with Josie and found her standing listening by a window which she had thrown open, filling the room with cold winter air. A bookcase had fallen over, and in another place a pitcher of water was broken on the floor, but the walls and ceilings seemed undamaged.

‘Tash!’ Josie turned to him and threw her arms around his legs, and he could feel the fear drain away from her as she clung to him. ‘I was worried something had happened to you.’ Josie held Tash tight, and the wonderful Josie smell of her hair the colour of new grith stalks drifted up to him. ‘Tash, you are shaking.’

He bent down and gently picked her up. ‘I-‘ he said, finding it hard to speak. ‘I worried about you, too.’

‘It must have been an earthquake,’ Josie said, nestling in Tash’s arms. She felt cold; she must have been waiting here for him with the window open since the earth stopped shaking.

‘You are cold,’ Tash said. ‘I shouldn’t have left you.’ He shut the window, then carried Josie back to a spot in front of the fire.

‘I was worried when I woke up and you weren’t here,’ said Josie. ‘I could hear walls collapsing. It felt like the whole castle was going to fall down. ’

‘This part of the castle seems strong,’ said Tash, drawing a hand across her smooth, cool forehead, smoothing back her hair. She did not protest.

‘I screamed a little,’ said Josie, laughing at herself, and rubbing Tash under his beak. ‘Where were you?’

‘I couldn’t sleep,’ said Tash. ‘So I went exploring.’ He opened his mouth to say more, and closed it. He opened it again, and once again closed it. He could not think of what to tell Josie about the Books of Tash and his meeting with Aslan, things which were already growing dim and dreamlike in his memory.

‘I am so glad you are alright,’ said Josie.

‘I am more glad that you are alright than I am glad about anything,’ said Tash, surprising himself with how much the words were true.


	16. Love is the Wind That Stems All Winds

Josie had dreamed that she was back on the liner, and was trying to get to her stateroom, but the hallways kept shaking from side to side and tilting further and further back, so that she couldn’t get where she wanted to go. Then she had woken with a start to the sound of breaking glass and books falling to the floor, and more distant crashes, and a floor that moved like the floor of the liner.

‘Tash!’ she had called, getting to her feet, and while the castle convulsed around her she felt her way over to his bed. It was empty and cold.

She had fallen to her hands and knees there, because it was hard to stand, and she had tried to pray like she had tried to pray when she fell overboard, but she had failed as she had before to get much further than ‘dear God, please don’t let me die.’ The castle had shook, and shook, and the sound of falling masonry grew into a thunderous roar then, a roar that seemed mixed with the roar of a wild beast. The sound had sent a thrill of terror through her, a thrill that was also crazy kind of joy, and she had screamed. When she had finished the room was no longer shaking.

‘My God,’ she had said, shakily rising and throwing back the shutters on the window . The air that flooded in was little warmer than freezing, but she had given it no mind. ‘Tash!’ Josie had called again, and listened for a response. There had been a few isolated sounds of stonework falling on the castle grounds, and in the distance the wild dogs had begun a melancholy caterwauling. She had prayed another desperate prayer, ‘dear God, please don’t let Tash die.’

What would she do if Tash was gone? She listened for every little sound, and after a while was certain that mixed among them were footsteps running across the pavement, but she did not call out again, because it would be too terrible if the voice that called back was not Tash.

Then Tash had returned to her, safe and strong, but trembling like she had never felt him trembling before; like herself he must have been terribly upset by the earthquake. She had realised then how cold she had become, standing by the open window, and it felt so good to be gathered up in Tash’s arms and warmed by the warmth of his body. The hammering of her heart had begun to slow, and then Tash had said ‘I am more glad that you are alright than I am glad about anything,’ in a voice that had set it hammering again. The terror and the crazy joy she had felt during the earthquake had not gone away, but was changing inside her into something different now that Tash had returned to her.

‘Tash,’ said Josie. He held her snugly with three arms, while his other hand smoothed back her hair. She could smell the anxiety on him, an acrid tang to his jasmine scent, but this only made her love him more.

‘I love you, Tash,’ Josie said. She had not planned to say it; she just suddenly found that she had said it.

‘I love you, Josie,’ said Tash, his massive head bent down close to hers.

She trembled with joy and fear. ‘You are still cold,’ said Tash. ‘I will put you back in your bed.’

‘Is it safe inside, do you think?’ she asked him. ‘I would not like the roof to fall on us.’

‘This part of the castle is strong, I think.’ He passed his hand softly over her forehead again, brushing the hair away from her face.

‘Will you stay with me tonight and keep me warm?’ she asked.

Josie felt the familiar tightness in her breath, the warmth going to her face and other places, but she did not care. She had taken back the decision she had made before. Tash did not say anything in reply, but gently put her down and arranged her blankets over her, then crawled in alongside her. Carefully, like he was putting dishes away – a thing he had to do very carefully, for he was wont to drop and break them- he lay one inhumanly long arm across Josie’s chest, and another across her feet. He lay his head alongside hers so she could feel his breath. All along her side she could feel the downy warmth of his chest and belly through her nightdress. Tash still seemed strangely trembly; or not so strangely trembly; for it was not every night they had an earthquake. One of his hands coiled around her shoulder; the lower hand on that side began to rub her ankle, back and forth. It was only a gentle touch, but she could instantly feel herself swelling inside like she had so often before when she had lain next to Tash. The unbearable feeling seemed stronger than it ever had before, stirred up by the earthquake and mingled with the fear and the wild reckless joy that had possessed her at its height.

‘I am thinking, Tash,’ said Josie slowly. ‘That this world is not my world, and it is not your world, and there seem to be quite different rules here about a lot of things. So the rules that we were supposed to obey on our own worlds are not the same rules that we need to obey here. So,’ she went on even more slowly, each word like something strange and wonderful she was taking out of a chest in a hidden room. ‘I love you, and you love me, and perhaps there is no reason that we cannot be betrothed here, even though we are different kinds.’

‘I only want to be near you, Josie,’ said Tash. There was a persistence in his touch that had not been there the times before, when they had lain together before in comparative innocence. While Josie spoke he had not stopped stroking her, his upper arm moving to the bare skin of her forearm, while the lower had moved upward, sliding back and forth along the inside of her calf. His hands moved with a ceaselessness as if he wanted to make sure that she was still there, that she was still real. That all of her was still there.

‘I know you want to be near me,’ she said, breathing hard. She reached out and rubbed the soft skin of Tash’s throat. The feathers there were tiny, and the feel of it put her in mind of a chicken at the age when they were little balls of fluff. Tash’s lower hand rubbed the skin behind her knee, while the other played with her hair. She kissed his beak then, and because he could not kiss back she let out her tongue and gave his warm ivory beak a tiny lick. It had a very faint bitter flavour that was not unpleasant. She licked it again. Tash smelled stronger to her than he ever had before, and she could smell herself, an improper animal stink.

‘Are we betrothed now?’ Tash asked uncertainly.

‘I think we should say something,’ she said.

‘Yes?’ asked Tash, raising his head to look at her face.

‘I think,’ she said slowly, ‘That it would be enough to say that we will never leave each other.’ She had made this rash promise before, but had never felt what it might mean to her. Now she did, with a force like she had run at full tilt into a wall, and it took her breath away.

‘I will never leave you, Josie,’ said Tash.

‘We should not rush,’ said Josie, wanting very much to rush. ‘We should have some sort of ceremony. And we cannot really be betrothed unless-‘

‘I will never leave you, Josie,’ said Tash again, with a burning intensity in his voice, as if he thought they were going to be torn apart at any moment.

‘I will never leave you, Tash,’ said Josie after a moment in which she seemed to hang in midair, like she was leaping into a pool from a high place. Her heart sang with a strange exultation. It was a crazy thing to do. By all the rules she had known before, it was not only crazy, but wicked: but this was not her world. In some far corner of the castle precariously balanced blocks of stone fell with a crash. She found that her hands were clutching him too tightly, like she was holding on for dear life, and she forced them to relax.

‘Now we are supposed to kiss,’ said Josie, and kissed Tash’s beak with her mouth open, holding her lips to it for a long minute and tasting the bitterness of it. She could feel herself starting to tremble, and Tash opened his beak a tiny bit; Josie darted her tongue in and tasted the wet sharpness inside, then sat up.

‘Is it done?’ asked Tash.

Josie rubbed Tash’s shoulder firmly in a sign of affirmation. ‘It is done. So we can sleep together, and bathe together, and we will know it is not wrong.’ Tash’s arms wrapped Josie gently. ‘I am glad you will never leave me. I am glad that we can do those things.’

‘Me too,’ said Josie. She was unable to stop trembling, so after a minute of being held to Tash’s chest and stroked with his free hand she pulled a little away from him and sat up.

‘My Josie?’ asked Tash, a little uncertainly.

Josie pulled her nightdress off over her head, then burrowed back under the blankets and pressed herself against Tash’s chest. It felt so good to feel skin next to skin, flesh next to flesh. It was something she had wanted all her life, she realised: to touch someone. She held her hands against his chest and buried her face in it, drinking in the scent of him. She wanted to drink him in, to be drunk herself, to be touched all over and to touch him all over. One of Tash’s giant almost-human hands rubbed Josie’s shoulderblades, while another cradled her from underneath, and from his hands something like an electric current sang through her body, the same exultation of being poised in midair as at the instant she made her rash promise.

***

How like a proper Mistess of Telmar she looks, Tash thought with pride, when Josie pulled her nightdress off and he saw the ruby key lying on the white skin of her chest. How splendid a thing it was to serve her, and love her, and be hers.

As Tash had touched Josie, and as she touched him, he had felt the same sense of exhilaration he had felt when he first touched her tear-streaked face. It grew and grew, and he felt spun and tumbled about inside, as if he was a pool of water being tossed about by the thrashings of some great mire-beast. She had promised that they would be together – whatever the lion said, they would be together, he vowed – but he needed to hold on tight to the reality of Josie, to feel her warm flesh, her long hair the colour of new grith stalks, her wet lips, the hot comforting moistness of her breath. The more Tash touched Josie the more he wanted to keep on touching her. He touched with a particular fervour the parts of Josie that she had not let him touch before, the parts that were not allowed before they were betrothed. It was good to run his hand up from thigh to neck along her back without running into cloth, to feel the soft lumps of flesh on her chest with the hard lumps at the ends, the curious puckering of her navel, the damp valley between her buttocks, this fringe of hair at the bottom of her belly that was so curiously unlike the hair on her head. And she smelled so very good. It was good to have so much of her smell so close to him, to have her rub it over his skin.

Josie kissed Tash’s chest, and darted out her tongue to taste it, and as she did it sent little shocks of wild joy through him, as if the mire beast that was tossing about the pool that was Tash had thrashed its tail. Something strange was happening to him. He could feel blood flowing to places in his body in ways it had not before, things swelling and moving within him without him willing them to do so.

‘I should still like to know if you were really a boy,’ Josie murmured to Tash, kissing his chest again.

‘How can you tell?’ he asked.

‘Between your legs,’ she told him. ‘Are you like me, or different?’

‘I think we must be the same,’ he said. ‘I always thought we looked the same, when I saw you without your clothes.’

‘Oh?’ said Josie.

Tash abruptly took a hand away from Josie’s thigh and felt between his legs. He felt different than he usually did. ‘I feel strange.’

***

Josie inched down Tash’s body to check for herself. Her hands slid from his chest to his belly, then to the thicker feathers above the junction of his legs, then to what he had between them. ‘I think you are right,’ she said, feeling a little of the same bewilderment she had felt when she had fallen from one world into another. ‘You are a girl after all, and not a boy.’ She could not help being disappointed and a little stupid, yet still felt more excited than she had ever been before. A small part of Josie outside herself laughed at herself.

‘That feels strange,’ Tash said, in a voice full of wonder and confusion. ‘Please do not stop.’

Feeling very strange herself, Josie gave Tash a cautious rub, then another, and then it was suddenly very clear that Tash was, indeed, a boy and not a girl. Tash suddenly threw his limbs about in a way quite unlike his usual gentle manner, making an unearthly hissing sound, and Josie had to roll away from him to avoid being struck.

‘You are a boy, after all,’ she said, and could not help herself from laughing. She kissed Tash’s chest.

‘Please do not stop,’ asked Tash.

Josie did not stop. Tash tried to avoid throwing his limbs about, but was unable to keep them quite still, so Josie grabbed tightly onto Tash’s thigh with both legs so she would not be knocked over.

‘Gentle, Tash, gentle,’ said Josie. ‘Dear Tash, gentle.’

She clung to Tash with her hands and with her legs, skin against feathered skin, and she kept on clinging to Tash. She felt like she was being carried along by a great wave, further and further out to sea.

The words of the first song Josie had heard the gazelles sing ran through her head.

In the tale of Love there are times

Other than the past, the present and the future;

Times for which no names have yet been coined.

Love is the light of life.

Love is the fire of life.

More, more, more: the waves were pounding at her, drawing her down, throwing her up, tumbling her head over heels. Josie loosened her grip on the still shuddering Tash and slipped off of him onto the blankets, her mind and body filled with a delicious sensation of warmth.

Abruptly, her eyes filled with tears. ‘Well, that’s torn it,’ she said to herself. It was wrong by the rules of her own world, she told herself fiercely, but not here in this new world. Here the humans married young. And there was no one else here in Telmar, just her and Tash, Tash and Josie.

‘That was very strange,’ said Tash, putting his arms around her. He touched a hand gently to her damp face. ‘You feel like everything that is good. Are you alright?’

Josie could not bring herself to talk, not then, but just buried her face in Tash’s shoulder and kissed it, taking deep breaths of the familiar smell of him. This seemed to reassure him that she was indeed alright.

‘I do love you,’ she said after a little while, when the tears had stopped flowing. ‘You feel like everything that is good, too.’

She lay there on Tash’s shoulder for what could have been a few seconds or half an hour, the thoughts in her head stubbornly resisting to form words.

‘Come, dear Tash,’ she said at last. ‘We should have a wash.’


	17. Aftershocks

In the morning Tash and Josie went out to survey the damage from the earthquake. In some places they walked hand in hand, and in others Tash carried Josie. Anyone watching would have seen what they would not have seen the day before, that they were two people entangled beyond any hope of disentanglement. Josie reached out to touch Tash more often than she had before, without any hesitation, and her touches lingered longer, while Tash kept one of his hands always on Josie’s arm or leg.

There were new cracks and fallen masonry everywhere they went, but the place that had been struck the worst seemed to be the hidden garden where they had first met.

‘The whole of the outside wall is down,’ Tash said excitedly. He edged close and described to Josie how its foundations had given way. The cliff that they had climbed down had fallen to the base of the hill, leaving a new precipice that was crumbling and impassable.

‘There are still rocks and earth falling down, and the roots of one of the big trees are hanging out over nothing. I wouldn’t be surprised if it fell over.’ Josie could hear the insidious unsettling sounds of the cliff edge crumbling away as they stood near it.

Tash turned to the middle of the garden. ‘The statue of the woman in the middle of the garden has fallen over and she has broken in half- here, you should feel the jewels she has around her neck, Josie, and – the other statues-‘ Tash fell silent.

‘They are broken too?’ ventured Josie. She had been sure that they were not true statues, but beasts turned to stone even as Tash had been turned to stone. It would be a tragedy if they were broken now, beyond any hope of magical rescue. And she had not even tried to turn them back, she felt, with a pang of guilt.

‘No – they are gone,’ said Tash. ‘There is nothing left.’

As her momentary worry about neglecting the statues lifted, it seemed suddenly to Josie as it had the night before that anything was possible. She felt like she had it in her power to do great and wonderful and audacious things. She was afraid, but exultant at the same time.

‘Could it be that the enchantment wore off? Or the earthquake broke it somehow?’

‘It could be,’ Tash agreed without any great conviction.

Josie knelt down and felt at the hoofprints of polished earth that the stag statue had left behind. There seemed to be other hoofprints, newly pressed into the living grass, heading away across the garden to the fallen outer wall. ‘Or maybe-‘ she forced herself to say the name, using her newfelt sense of power. ‘The lion – Aslan- is here.’

‘It could be,’ said Tash, turning away from Josie.

‘Did you see anything unusual last night, before the earthquake?’ Josie asked Tash.

Through the hand she held she felt Tash stiffen, like someone who has just noticed that they are about to step on a poisonous snake. ‘Tash?’ she asked, with a hint of sharpness in her voice.

‘I saw him,’ Tash admitted in a gravelly mumble that made his voice sound even more unmusical than usual. ‘Over there, in a part of the ruins that fell down when the earthquake started.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me earlier?’ asked Josie.

‘I was distracted by other things,’ Tash mumbled.

At this Josie could not help laughing. She folded herself around one of Tash’s legs and kissed his thigh. ‘Of course you were, dear Tash. Husband Tash. Did he- Aslan – say anything to you?’

‘A little,’ Tash admitted. ‘He said- he said- that you were meant to go away from here, back to the place the ifrits took you from, and do something with the humans there. He said you had to take someone – the dog, I think -and then all the animals here who used to be men would be changed back ’

‘He didn’t want to tell me this himself?’ Josie asked.

‘He said that you wouldn’t listen to him, so I had to persuade you. I didn’t want- don’t want- to persuade you. I am sure there is another way.’

‘Another way?’

‘He said that we could not be together,’ Tash said. ‘He said that we were only going to be in each other’s stories a short time, and then go in different directions. He said you had to do this thing, and then go back to your own world. He said that I couldn’t come with you.’

A disorienting rush of feelings had swept over Josie. She felt guilty again, and she felt indignant at the same time that she was being made to feel guilty. She felt she was being herded, told what to do, as she had been (for her own good, always for her own good) all her life. She was not nobody, not anymore, poor little blind Josie Furness: she was Josie, Mistress of Telmar. She felt that she ought to obey, and she felt she should take a furious pride in not obeying.

‘Just because the lion says so doesn’t mean that’s the way things have to be,’ said Josie hotly.

‘I said that there had to be another way,’ said Tash.

‘We will find another way,’ said Josie, and squeezed Tash’s leg again. Then she said again ‘We will find another way,’ because it sounded more true the more times she said it. ‘It is convenient, isn’t it, an earthquake coming just as the Lion’ – she forced herself to say the name, she would not be frightened or bossed around, not anymore- ‘just as Aslan comes here?’

‘It is not very convenient,’ said Tash, puzzled.

‘I mean, he comes along and tells us we have to go, and at the same time he makes an earthquake to make us think the whole place is going to fall down on our heads. Obviously he is powerful enough to do whatever he likes – kill us or drag us off quick as spit if he wanted to – but he wants us to obey him. I don’t see why we should.’

Josie had not intended to get quite so angry. She had raised her voice and balled her hands into fists. Only a little bit of her anger was truly anger at Aslan, the lion whom she had never met, and who the beasts of this world credited with godlike powers, such as snatching girls out of the ocean and into other worlds. No, she was angry at the God of her own world, the one who had made her blind, who had taken her mother from her, taken her sister from her, taken her out of her home and sent her to the other side of the world to live with a man who had deserted and betrayed her family. She knew in her heart that Aslan was good, but she knew too that he was good in that terrible bloodless way that she had felt in the secret chamber, a good that she did not want pushing her around like she was a piece on a chessboard, part of some grand plan in which her feelings did not matter. Then there was the guilt she felt for what she and Tash had done, guilt stirred up by this talk of duty; for the rules that she had rejected with her conscious mind held her subconscious in an iron prison.

‘So we will not leave for the land of humans?’ said Tash.

‘Maybe one day,’ Josie said with determination. ‘Not now. Not on the say so of Aslan.’ She quashed her misgivings as best she could. ‘There was a time when I would have given a great deal to have Aslan show up and tell me what to do. But I don’t feel that way anymore.’

***

‘Good,’ said Tash. ‘I was supposed to persuade you. But I am happy not to.’ He ran his hands through her hair, relieved.

From the night of the earthquake onwards Tash could never again be as happy as he had been before, even though he was now betrothed to Josie. Hanging over him were the words of the Books of Tash and the words of the Lion, the prophecies that condemned him to be separate from Josie. He had said he would find another way, and Josie had promised that she would find another way, but the two of them were very small compared to all the worlds.

As spring came on with reckless haste, Josie and Tash turned the whole of the castle upside down, looking for anything that could help them. There was precious little that they could be sure would be of use. There were rings and amulets of the evil magician’s that were clearly magical, but they were not sure exactly what they were meant to do, and reluctant to experiment. Tash had tried to read the books the magician had left behind, but the strange symbols in them stubbornly refused to rearrange themselves into comprehensible ones. The whole of his time beneath Telmar had taken on a dreamlike quality, so that it blurred in his memory. Sometimes it could almost be forgotten, and was only there as a looming grey uneasiness: then the memory of a phrase read, or the face of the Lion, or a cruel image made of hundreds of pieces of stones, would come back to Tash with the force of a blow.

Then there was the dog. It had not returned for almost two weeks after the earthquake, and Josie had begun to worry that something had happened to it. Then one sunny day Tash went out hunting, and Josie came with him as far as the flat stone overlooking the fishing pool, and when he returned with a rabbit he had caught the dog was with her.

‘You were right, Tash,’ she said in a melancholy way. ’I have been getting her story out of her by this game of twenty questions, and it is filled with Aslan.’

The dog lay with her- head in Josie’s lap, looking soulfully up at Tash. It was a scruffy sort of animal, and had gotten a fair bit of mud on it with the change in the weather, but Josie did not seem to mind.

‘I am not sure what her name is. She is the only one who is like her; the others are not as smart. They have stories about how Aslan made them the way they are, and the pack leader says they should be content with their lot. But Aslan – I think – told her that we could help her. I am not sure if it was a dream she had or not. She finds you very frightening. It is very slow working it out,’ she sighed. ‘I don’t know, Tash, can helping her really mean that we have to be parted? What did Aslan say, exactly?’

Tash had been admiring the way the sun shone on Josie’s face as she spoke, and had to admit that he had not quite followed what he was saying.

‘Dear Tash, you are sometimes useless at listening,’ she chided him, and repeated herself. He looked so miserable after this that she had to shoo the dog off her lap and reach over to give him a hug.

Tash explained what the Lion said again. ‘He said I had to choose one of two paths, and neither of them had you in it, and that I had to persuade you to go back to the human lands, to a place called Balan, to make things right between the humans and the talking animals, and the sooner we went the better. And that the men of Telmar had been bad so he had punished them, but it was time for their descendants to be unpunished, and he had picked someone – maybe it is this dog – to be the one to help with them being able to talk again.’

Josie held on to Tash’s ankle in a proprietary way. ‘I don’t see how it can be true that we have to be parted, and that our only choice is to do exactly what Aslan says. It seems to me that we should be able to do the best we can to help on our own, without Aslan. There must be things we can do to help her without going off on a long quest to the human lands. I don’t know – Tash – that it would be easy for you in the human lands of this world, from what I have heard of them. Will you come into the castle with us, dog?’

The talking dog that could not talk swished her tail to-and-fro, three times. Josie reached out to scratch her behind her ears but did not let go of Tash’s ankle.

‘You will think of something, Josie,’ said Tash. Josie had a concentrated look on her face: she had remembered the gazelle Alabitha saying much the same thing, and thinking of that meeting reminded her again of Alice in Wonderland, and then she thought of the cake labelled ‘Eat Me’.

‘Maybe the food in the secret room would help the dog to talk?’ she suggested.

‘We know it is magic,’ said Tash. ‘You said not to eat it before.’

‘I know,’ said Josie. ‘It does seem rash. But I very much doubt the food is deadly poison. It might be worth trying. What do you think, friend dog?’

The dog had drawn back out of reach of Josie, and her claws skittered on the stone as she danced back and forth uncertainly.

‘I guess we should go,’ said Josie, holding up her arms so Tash could help her up. He scooped her up in three of his arms, holding on the rabbit with the other, and started off.

‘Come along, then,’ Josie called to the dog.

Tash carried Josie over the uneven ground along the edge of the stream back toward the castle, the dog following behind.

***

Tash peered at the almost-round balls of sweet-smelling pinkish fruit in the box, nestled in a bed of straw. ‘So those are apples,’ he thought. It was curious that something so simple and natural looking could be so dreadfully magical. There were only three of them, though it looked as if there had once been many more. Josie had shown him the box and then gone poking about the other things on the dais. She looked very much like the Mistress of Telmar, Tash thought , as she moved about in the reddish light of his lamp –she had tied her hair back with a bit of cloth of gold, and had put on when she awoke that morning a necklace of gold with dozens of red stones that he had found for her. She drew his attention irresistibly, inexorably. He would give everything to stay with her forever, to protect her and help her and feel her skin against his own.

‘I think this armour would fit me,’ she said. ‘It seems like there is one for a man and one for a woman, and it seems to be exactly the right size.’

‘It would look very nice on you,’ said Tash.

‘I still don’t know what to do,’ said Josie. She traced the embossed pattern of the lion on the chestpiece of the armour. ‘I remember being here before, saying that in these stories Aslan shows up to tell people what they have to do, so we should just wait until then, and now he has, and I don’t want to do what he said. I can’t do what he said.’

The dog had been reluctant to come any closer than the top of the stairs, and Josie had made no effort to encourage her to come closer. ‘She will come in her own time,’ she had said, and quoted. ‘Patience is a virtue.’ The dog had been very timid about accompanying them into the castle at all, and in the end what made her mind up more than anything else was it starting to pour with rain.

Josie set the armour back down and went to examine the table where the food was laid out as if for a banquet, gently sniffing and prodding at each dish. ‘This pie seems like something dogs would like,’ said Josie, selecting a meat-filled pastry about the size of her hand. Tash agreed. Dogs did not seem like very particular animals, from what he had seen of their habits; they had certainly been eager enough to devour the corpse of the magician.

“Maybe it would be better to have something dogs don’t like,’ he suggested. ‘Then, if the dog eats it, we will know it is because she understands us saying it is magic that could make her talk, and not just because she is hungry.’

‘That’s not a bad idea,’ said Josie. She put the pie back down and picked up a bowl of pickled turnips, getting purple stains on her hands. ‘I don’t suppose dogs are very fond of these.’

‘They are like grith, but nicer,’ said Tash. He was rather fond of them, and had eaten almost all of the magician’s stores of non-magical pickled turnip.

‘I know Tashes are fond of these, already,’ said Josie cheerfully.

The dog was wary of the rooms where Tash and Josie lived – they had the smell of Tash to them, who the dog was afraid of, and doubtless the smell of the magician, who generations of the dogs ancestors had probably been afraid of- so they had brought the food back upstairs to one of the unused rooms of the castle, a hall lined with empty bookcases with a big new crack running down one wall from floor to ceiling.

Josie addressed the dog, looking to Tash very much like a great queen or sorceress in her silks and jewels. ‘As you know, we don’t know if this will work; but there is magic food preserved for some reason in the hidden chamber of this castle, left there – we think- by Aslan when he turned your ancestors into beasts. One reason this might be so would be to turn your people back from being beasts. It might be dangerous, but if you want to try, here it is.’ She set a piece of pickled turnip in front of the dog.

Without hesitation, the dog snapped it up. She came forward and nuzzled Josie’s foot, and Josie gave her a pat. ‘Good girl,’ she said. ‘I hope that will do some good. Or, at least doesn’t do any harm.’

The dog let Josie pat her for a while, then gave an enormous yawn, walked over to a pool of sunlight in the doorway, and curled up on the tiles.

‘She is going to sleep,’ said Tash. ‘She seems to be quite asleep already.’

‘Well, maybe it wasn’t quite as magic pickled turnip as we hoped,’ said Josie. And then she said ‘what?’ For Tash had made a sudden startled movement.

‘She- she-‘ said Tash. It was not any less surprising than a statue turning into a living thing; but he had not seen that, just lived it. ‘She has changed into a human.’ She was darker-skinned than Josie, like the men and women of Telmar had been, and had a wild mane of black hair that came halfway down her back. The hair on her legs was much thicker than Josie’s, and she was curled up asleep in the same position she had been as a dog, which looked uncomfortable to Tash.

‘Hello? Miss?’ Josie stepped forward, bent down, and gently shook the shoulder of the sleeping woman who had been a dog. She woke with a yelp of surprise and scrambled to all fours, then fell into a heap; it appeared she had not expected her hind legs to be so long. She lay where she had fallen, gazing around the room with rapt attention.

‘Are you alright? Can you understand me?’ asked Josie.

‘Yes,’ said the woman, and her eyes widened as she heard the sound of her own voice for the first time. It was a voice that sounded human enough, but much deeper than Josie’s, and had the woody quality of notes struck on a xylophone.

‘What is your name?’ asked Josie.

‘Blackbriar,’ said the woman who had been a dog.


	18. Blackbriar's Story

Blackbriar sniffed. ‘I can’t smell anything,’ she said mournfully.  
  
‘I’m pleased to meet you, Blackbriar’ said Josie. ‘Well, I have met you, but I’m pleased to meet you in this shape and learn your name. You will catch your death of cold sitting on the floor like that – can you come with us to the rooms we were in before?’  
  
Blackbriar sniffed again. ‘I don’t like this,’ she said.  
  
Tash stepped towards Blackbriar to help her off the floor, and she shuffled away from him in alarm. ‘Don’t worry,’ said Josie. ‘Tash can help you.’  
  
‘I can,’ said Tash, helpfully.  
  
‘Do you think you can you get up and walk?’ asked Josie.  
  
‘I will try,’ said Blackbriar, and before Josie could get close enough to be of any help Blackbriar had thrust herself up to her feet and was teetering precariously.  
  
‘Hard,’ she said, in what was almost a bark, keeping her balance with a great deal of effort.  
  
‘Here, let me help,’ said Josie, taking the woman’s arm. Tash in turn hovered at her side, anxious to catch Josie if Blackbriar fell and pulled her down.  
  
‘Tricky,’ said Blackbriar, taking her first tentative steps. By the time they had covered the short distance to the magician’s old rooms she was walking about as well as a newly-weaned thalarka. They sat her down on some cushions in a more or less human manner, where she sat with her mouth open staring at everything curiously with her new human eyes. Josie fetched her a dress, which she managed to put on with considerable difficulty.  
  
‘This is very strange,’ said Blackbriar.  
  
‘We are starting to get used to things that are very strange,’ said Josie. ‘Tash is trying to hand you a cup of water; you should take it.’  
  
Blackbriar took the cup warily and awkwardly, not used to having hands, and Tash backed away to crouch by where Josie was sitting.  
  
‘We have done this magic so I can tell you my story,’ said Blackbriar. ‘So I should do that.’ She shook her head like she was trying to get something out of her ear. ‘I sound so very strange.’  
  
‘Please,’ said Josie.  
  
‘Well,’ said Blackbriar, rearranging herself on the cushion so she was curled-up on top of it in a more doglike fashion. ‘My ancestors were wicked, so they were cursed by the Lion and turned into dogs and pigs. This was in my mother’s mother’s mother’s time. They deserved their punishment, because they were wicked, but now we are not wicked, I don’t think. We dogs don’t have much to do with the pigs. We have always lived in this valley where we were first made, both us dogs and the pigs. The wicked magician and his ifrits have always been cruel to us, for as long as we can remember. Maybe he hated our ancestors who were like him. Most of us are stupid because our ancestors bred with dumb animals, but enough of us are clever enough that we still remember where we came from. I always knew I was cleverer than the others – I could think more clearly and connect things that the others could not connect. But I did not know how different I was until you came here. You human girl and you creature were things that were different from anything I had smelled before. Even as we ate the flesh of the wicked magician who had been our enemy for so many years, I was thinking of you. For I remembered a story that everyone else has forgotten, a story told by one of the oldest who is dead now, an oldest who was clever like me. This one told me that we stay in this valley, even though there is little food and the wicked magician is cruel to us- was cruel to us- because one day the Lion will have pity on us and make us talking beasts, if we stay in this place where he can find us. And this one told me that even as when we were turned into beasts, there were two humans from far away who came with the Lion, there will be two humans from far away who will come here when the Lion comes, or maybe before, and their coming will be the sign that we will be delivered. So I went to the leader of the pack, and said to him, even though one of these ones who has come is a creature, it seems like he might be a kind of human, so might it be that these two are the ones who are foretold? But he said no, we are not meant to be talking beasts, that is just a tale for pups. And I would not have quarrelled with my pack, but accepted all that the leader of the pack said, except that I met a wild cat in the forest. It was in a tree when I came by it in the easternmost part of the valley, and it spoke to me, not like a talking beast, but in the way of speaking without words that we dogs have with each other, as if it were a dog rather than a cat. It said, you are right, Blackbriar, the Lion is coming to deliver your people and make new what he made before, and these two are the ones who were foretold, and they can help you to speak and walk among the talking animals of the world and not slink in the shadows. And I said, how do you know these things? But it would not tell me. And I said, how do you know my name, and what is your name? And it said, I know everyone’s name, and you already know my name, and then I was sure that it was the Lion in the guise of a cat. But it went away before I could ask any more questions. Then I did quarrel with the others of my pack, because then it was not just my thinking that you two were the ones foretold, but the words of the cat who was actually the Lion saying you were the ones foretold. So I drew nearer to you when I could, Josie, and tried to tell you of my trouble.’  
  
Blackbriar’s story did not come across in quite the same way as it is written here as it was told by Blackbriar, for she had an itchy spot, and having been a dog very recently she tried from time to time to chew at it, but she could not reach, so instead would twist about so as to rub it against the cushion.  
  
Blackbriar went on. ‘Now I have listened to all that you have said near me, and I do not understand. Is the Lion coming back to make us into talking animals? What am I meant to do, and what are you human girl – Josie – and you creature – Tash – meant to do?’  
  
‘I don’t know,’ said Josie. Truthfully, but not entirely so. ‘His plans are hidden from us.’  
  
‘I know he has been here again,’ said Blackbriar, in her mournful doggy way. ‘But he did not stay. After the earth shook I followed him and the beasts who were with him across the land for four days, but he did not stop. I gave up when I came to a river that I could not cross. With your help, I could cross it.’  
  
‘We thought this food would help you,’ said Tash. ‘We could feed the magic food to the rest of your people, and then they would be changed into men, too.’  
  
‘I do not mean to sound ungrateful,’ said Blackbriar. ‘But I would much rather be a talking dog. This is a very awkward shape. I am sure my people would not like to be men. The story I was told was that we were to be talking animals.’  
  
‘I’m sorry,’ said Josie. ‘I do not think it such a bad shape; but then I guess I wouldn’t. You will quite like it when you have figured out how to use your hands properly, and walk properly.’  
  
‘If you say so,’ said Blackbriar, lowering her head as a dog would do to show Josie was the boss.  
  
‘Which way is this river?’ asked Josie.  
  
‘It is to the south,’ said Blackbriar. ‘The stream that flows through this valley joins a greater water, then a greater, then reaches it. I went back and forth it for a day but it was big with snowmelt and I could find no place to cross. But the Lion and the great creatures who were with him crossed it easily. Why did he not stop to talk with me again? Why did he not make my people new, like he said he would? Do you think we should be punished longer?’  
  
‘I don’t think you should be punished at all for what your ancestors did,’ said Josie. ‘I know- I know Aslan wants us to go to the lands of the men that lie to the south, and take you with us. I expect there is something that we are supposed to do there, before your people can be changed into talking animals.’  
  
‘That is what I thought,’ said Blackbriar. ‘But that is what I do not understand from listening to your talk. Why did you not take me and go after the Lion?’  
  
This is the question that is the problem at the heart of Josie’s story, and is one form of a question that is as old as God and created beings. I will explain as well as I can here what Josie could have said, even though she did not say it. Why did she set out so readily at the say so of the gazelles on a quest to meet Prince Margis, and not return to this same quest once she was free of the magician Yustus? The first reason was just that it was much more difficult to do so. She would be travelling no longer with four companions through a friendly country that they knew well, following their directions, but would have to find her own way through a wild and unknown land with companions little less ignorant than herself. The second was that she had become more fearful of what the men of this world might be like, both on her own account and on that of Tash, since she had spoken with Yustus and Zardeenah, and lived so long at the whims of the evil magician. The third, and a very great reason, was that she had fallen into a strange love with Tash, and that she knew very well without having to have it prophesied that if she left this place and went to the human lands this love would be impossible and they would be separated. And the fourth was what Miss Miles had muttered as she closed the door at the very beginning of this story, which was that she was a wilful girl, and having found her feet in this new world was overproud and no longer content to be ordered about. But Josie could not very well say any of these things to Blackbriar.  
  
‘We need to keep the secrets of this place out of the hands of wicked men,’ said Josie. To her own ears she did not sound as if she really believed it.  
  
‘If you say so,’ said Blackbriar, bowing her head.  
  
‘We will still do what we can to help you,’ Josie promised.  
  
They showed Blackbriar how to pick up food with her hands and eat it, and she admitted that hands would be very useful once she got the hang of them. ‘These are a very poor sort of teeth, though,’ she said. Josie helped Blackbriar to bathe, and to comb her hair after a fashion. ‘It is a mess, I am afraid,’ said Josie. ‘You may have to cut it short and start again.’  
  
‘If you say so,’ said Blackbriar.  
  
Blackbriar did not want to sleep in the magician’s rooms, so they made her a bed in the empty chamber where she had slept the night before as a dog.  
  
***  
  
‘I don’t see how we can keep eating the pigs here anymore, if they used to be people,’ said Josie to Tash, when they were curled up together that night. ‘Ugh’.  
  
‘If you say so,’ said Tash mournfully.  
  
‘You sound like Blackbriar,’ said Josie. ‘Of course we can’t eat them, if they are descended from people. We will just have to find something else to eat.’  
  
‘There are not so many deer, and they are harder to catch,’ said Tash.  
  
‘We will just have to get by,’ said Josie firmly. ‘It makes me feel sick, thinking I have been eating pigs whose great-great-grandmothers were people.’  
  
Tash said something like ‘if you say so’ in a small muttering voice.  
  
Josie decided to change the subject. ‘I never imagined that the magic food would turn Blackbriar into a woman like that. I have never known such magic – well, not since you were turned back from stone.’  
  
‘I am so glad that you turned me back from stone, and I did not stay stone another thousand years, and miss you,’ said Tash.  
  
Josie snuggled up against him and kissed the soft skin at his throat. ‘Me too, dear Tash, me too.’  
  
‘What are we to do with Blackbriar?’ she mused, after a moment. She shifted, rearranging herself against Tash’s chest. ‘I don’t see how we can’t help her. But we don’t have to go all the way to the human lands; we can see that she is kitted out properly, and help her across the river, and stop before we get to the places where men are.’  
  
‘She can go herself now that she is a woman,’ said Tash. He sounded nervous to Josie. She was nervous herself. It was not just a matter of deciding one way or another, once and for all: there would be one decision, and then another, and then another, and maybe they would all be like they seemed to be in recent days, complicated decisions with no easy or comfortable answers.  
  
‘But she doesn’t know anything about being a human,’ said Josie. ‘She will need help. At least at the beginning. And maybe, maybe that will be enough.’  
  
‘Maybe,’ said Tash. But Josie did not think he believed it. She thought he did not believe there was anything he could do to escape the words of Aslan, telling him that they were destined to be separated.  
  
‘We don’t know that there is really destiny,’ said Josie. ‘It seems to me it is just the Lion deciding one way or another, and if you do something different, he can always decide a different way again.’  
  
‘That’s not what he said,’ Tash said gruffly.  
  
Josie decided to change the subject again. She ran her hand over Tash’s chest. ‘You feel dry,’ she said. ‘Does it itch?’  
  
‘Not as much as it used to,’ he said. ‘It is better now that the weather is warmer and I do not spend so much time by the fire. But I did not have a bath today.’  
  
‘We could go and have a bath now,’ said Josie, turning so that her body was pressed against Tash’s side and throwing one leg over him.  
  
‘That would be good,’ said Tash.  
  
‘Or, in a few minutes,’ said Josie, kissing his neck again. She slid her foot back and forth, and Tash began to hiss softly and hold her tightly to his chest, and she gave herself up to being a female creature.  
  
***  
  
When they awoke Blackbriar had turned back into a dog, and when Josie put another piece of pickled turnip in front of her she only turned her head aside.  
  
‘I suppose she said all she wanted to say,’ said Josie. ‘And she really did not like being a woman.’ She petted Blackbriar. ‘And I suppose too, this means it is more complicated to turn them back than we thought.’ She found that she was crying.  
  
‘Don’t cry, Josie,’ said Tash, picking up the unresisting girl. ‘You will figure out what to do.’ He held his hand against her tears, and once again felt that strange tingle through the whole of his body.  
  
‘We will figure out what to do,’ said Josie, and kissed him. ‘Together.’  
  
‘Yes,’ said Tash. ‘Together.’


	19. The Road Not Taken

It had rained steadily for the rest of the week, and when it was done the stream below the castle was high and the land was terribly muddy, so it had not seemed the wisest time to travel; and it was some weeks after that Josie finally made up her mind that she had to see the dog Blackbriar safely to the other side of the great river.

Then Josie had to figure out what to take on the journey, which is the sort of business that can be done in great hurry if necessary, but can expand to take up a great deal of time otherwise, especially if the journey is one that does not have a date set for departure, and is one that one is nervous about going on at all. The part of this figuring out that took the greatest amount of time was something that Josie did not speak with Tash about at all: deciding whether or not to take one of the magic apples. She did not want them in case they suddenly decided on the journey to seek to become immortal, but in case of some grievous accident. She knew from what Yustus had said that the apples could heal any hurt or sickness short of death, and there were any number of horrible things that could possibly happen to them on a journey through the unknown wilds. She thought of at least a dozen of them, imagining them all too clearly. At the end Josie decided that she would bring one of the apples, and fetched it up from the secret chamber while Tash was out hunting. She wrapped it up very carefully in a bit of silk and put it in the bag with her clothes.

So one day when spring was well advanced Josie, Tash, and Blackbriar left the castle of Telmar, leaving the parts of it they lived in shut up against the weather as well as they could. Josie had ended up bringing rather a lot of things for the journey, but Tash could easily carry enough for half a dozen travellers.

‘We don’t really now how long we will be,’ said Josie, picking up the bag with the apples. She gave Tash’s legs a hug. ‘It will be alright,’ she said – to Tash, or to herself, she was not sure. Then she patted Blackbriar’s head, as if she were an ordinary dog, and took Tash’s hand for the walk down the hidden path to the stream.

The three travellers followed the stream out of the valley as best they could, skirting the edge of the gorge and picking their way downhill through the rumpled country to the south where Josie and Tash had not been before. Below the gorge Josie realised how grim and dreary the vale of Telmar had been, and how much she had gotten used to living there since the Ifrits had brought her there. It was immediately a more fragrant sort of country beyond the valley, more alive with birds and beasts, and had a less closed-in feel. Besides the cypresses there were other sorts of trees – a good many willows along the streambanks, for example, and poplars in the hollows – and instead of an endless roof of forest and an endless floor of dry needles underfoot there were a good many meadows, where sweet-smelling flowers were growing thickly. There were bulbous things that Josie thought to be a sort of crocus, and drooping bell-shaped flowers that smelled a very little like strawberries, and wild roses whose few flowers had a desperate and intoxicating perfume.

It was difficult at first, but day by day Josie grew stronger. Tash still carried her a good deal of the time, though she walked beside him on the flatter ground, hand in hand. Blackbriar mostly ran off ahead to scout the way, running back to rejoin them every five or ten minutes.

‘I do wish you had stayed a woman a while longer,’ Josie said to Blackbriar as they walked along, in one of the moments while the two of them were walking alongside. ‘It would be so much easier to talk. But I suppose it must have been very horrid for you.’

Blackbriar agreed with a lick: that it would have been easier, or that it had been very horrid, Josie was not sure, and she scampered away again into the undergrowth before Josie could ask.

In the damp spring weather Josie found it a good deal more unpleasant sleeping out of doors than it had been in the desert with the gazelles; at least, she would have found it more unpleasant if it had not been for Tash. He was large enough and feathery enough to fold himself around her in a way that kept her comfortable enough in all but the nastiest weather. It is fair to say that all through this journey Tash and Josie thought mostly about each other. They were travelling through a pleasant country, filled with the sounds and smells of life, and each day brought something new, and their future was an uncertain and frightening thing; but they had both already been through so many uncertain and frightening things, and come through to find each other – so they clung to one another, and did not want to stop touching one another, and drank in the presence of the other like a thirsty man drinks water. If I were to write down what they said to each other it would be very dull. They were in love, and so they were impatient of everything else, and selfish in the selfless way of people in love, and they would have been very irritating to travel with. Perhaps Blackbriar was irritated, but if she was, she never showed it. Dogs are very forgiving.

Each day the travellers heard many dumb beasts, and every morning they woke to a cacophony of birdsong, but they did not meet any men or talking beasts in five days of travelling. They could rarely go in a straight line, for although there were no terribly steep mountains or gorges in the country below the Vale of Telmar the whole of it was rumpled like a blanket, with thick woods on the high parts and streams with boggy edges on the low parts. The river that had stopped Blackbriar on her last journey was still swollen, and the broken boles of trees cast up on its banks showed where it had been higher still, but Tash was large enough and strong enough that they crossed it without difficulty.

Tash and Josie did not discuss what they would do when they were camped on the other side, although this was far as they had agreed to go before they left Telmar. Instead they sat around the fire – they had stopped early and gathered deadwood along the banks – and talked about trivial things while they ate fish that Tash had caught in the river, and did their best to be as cheerful as possible as if their life together would never end.

‘We’ve been very lucky so far,’ said Josie, tempting fate, as she threw the last bony bit of her fish into the bushes. ‘It hasn’t rained, and we haven’t seen any sign of fierce beasts. And certainly not giants,’ These were creatures that Yustus had described to her with great relish, in telling her what might happen to her if she ran away, and Zardeenah had confirmed most of the evil magician’s stories. ‘They are probably only a long way away from here.’

‘I will keep you safe,’ said Tash. They reached out to take each other’s hands.

‘I wish Blackbriar could talk,’ said Josie. ‘I am sure she could tell us all sorts of stories.’

Tash curled up around Josie to keep her warm, and Blackbriar slept at their feet, and the cheerful little fire they had made slowly burned down until it was a tiny ruby of light in the middle of the forest.

The next morning they kept on southward, leaving their camp behind before the sun had cleared the horizon. Beyond the big river was flatter country, and a more open woodland, with a great many deer who took off at their approach. They made good progress through this country for a morning and an afternoon, and were about to make camp in a meadow that smelled of rosemary when Blackbriar became very excited and led them off to a low hill nearby.

‘There is a hole in it, and a little field of torn earth,’ said Tash.

‘Someone’s garden,’ said Josie. She knelt down and crumbled a bit of soil between her fingers, feeling very nervous. Could they have already come to a land of men? She had not thought they could be so close.

‘There’s a bit of curtain hanging down inside the hole. It is too small for me to get through, though you probably could, Josie. Someone is coming out.’

‘Someone certainly is coming out,’ said a surly, prickly kind of voice, and Josie could tell at once that it was the voice of some kind of talking animal. ‘Who are you, and what do you want?’ the newcomer asked suspiciously.

‘I am Tash,’ said Tash, stepping back a few steps as the stranger emerged from his home.

‘I am Josie,’ said Josie. ‘And this is Blackbriar. We were just travelling through, and we thought we would stop and ask if you had any news.’

‘Well, I’ll be,’ said the hedgehog – for that is what he was, a talking hedgehog who stood a bit higher than Josie’s waist walking on his hind legs – ‘Twenty years, whelp and boar, I’ve lived in this place, and you’re the first folk I’ve ever met who said they were ‘just travelling through’.’ After a rather long pause, as of someone who was not at all used to making introductions, he told them who he was. ‘My name is Shoab, son of Amidanab.’

Josie thought the hedgehog smelled rather like pipe tobacco. ‘Pleased to meet you,’ she said.

‘I also am pleased to meet you,’ said Tash.

‘Likewise,’ said Shoab shortly. He sniffed the air dubiously. ‘I know a dog when I see one, and a Daughter of Helen, but what sort of creature are you?’ he asked Tash.

‘I am a thalarka,’ said Tash. This answer seemed to satisfy the hedgehog hermit, for he just said ‘hrm,’ and made no further comment.

‘Has anyone at all been through here?’ asked Josie. ‘A month or so ago?’

‘Funny you should ask that,’ said Shoab, in a slow suspicious kind of voice. ‘Or maybe not so funny. That’s the news you’re asking after, I suppose. Yes, a month or so ago there were some peculiar travellers through here. I was out digging of an evening, and I heard a crashing and a running through the country, of a big creature, no two, no three big creatures who were heedless of who might hear them. I kept quiet and I kept downwind until they were long gone, but when I looked in the morning there were footprints near the water hole where I planted the apricot tree: big pawprints of great cats, and big hoofprints of a deer a good deal larger than the ones who live around here. I’ve never seen cats like those in these parts – at least not for years, since that pair of leopards came up this way during the drought. And travelling together with a deer like that, stands to reason they would be talking animals, and not dumb ones. Would you be on the trail of them?’

‘After a fashion,’ said Josie. ‘I mean, yes.’

‘Then you are on the right path,’ said Shoab son of Amidanab. He stood there regarding them, chewing something that had been packed in his cheek before. ‘Three strange travellers then, and then three more this morning,’ he said, talking more to himself than to them, and then belatedly remembering his manners. ‘You look to have enough common sense that you won’t complain at me calling you strange, Miss. We don’t get many – any – of your kind in these parts.’

‘I don’t mind,’ said Josie. ‘Why do you live out here all alone? Isn’t it dangerous?’

‘Not so dangerous if you keep quiet and keep downwind and don’t meddle in other folk’s business,’ said the hedgehog, answering the first question. ‘They’re simple rules, but a lot of folk can’t seem to get the hang of them.’

‘I’ll try to remember them,’ said Josie. ‘Is it far to the lands where men live?’

‘I don’t rightly know,’ said Shoab son of Amidanab. ‘It’s like I said already. I’ve heard the rumour of Sons of Frank around here a few times, but you’re the first Daughter of Helen I’ve seen or heard of in these parts. So if you’ve come far from where you live, you’re probably a long way from any of those lands.’

‘Thank you,’ said Josie. ‘I guess there is still a long way to go.’ She gave Blackbriar a pat. ‘Can you tell us how to get to this water hole?’

The hedgehog nodded. ‘That I can, Miss. Just over that rise there, and then over the next one, and you’ll find the water hole where I planted the apricot tree. You can stay there, if you like.’ He chewed whatever he was keeping in his mouth thoughtfully. Strangest thing is, I thought that apricot tree had upped and died on me over the winter; but that morning when I went down and saw the footprints, there were new buds on it.’

‘Thank you very much,’ said Josie. ‘You’ve been a lot of help.’

‘Good day,’ said Shoab son of Amidanab, with an air of finality.

***

The hedgehog hermit had given them a last suspicious look and vanished back behind his front door curtain. When they had gone a little distance Tash looked back, and saw him peering after them from around the edge of the curtain. It was like how he probably would have looked, thought Tash, at some strange procession passing through his village, when he was a child on Ua.

‘I expect he has quite an interesting story, to have come out here all by himself and lived alone for so long,’ Josie said, when they were well underway again.

‘He did not seem like he would tell it,’ said Tash.

‘That’s true,’ said Josie. She shook her head. ‘Imagine living all alone like that for twenty years.’

‘I would not like it,’ said Tash.

This was true; but Tash had also been favourably impressed by Shoab son of Amidanab the hedgehog. He could not have said exactly what it was, but there was something in the hedgehog’s manner, in his audacity in living all alone, that appealed to Tash. He would hate to be without Josie, of course – it was only when he was with her that he could forget what he was, and the fate that had been foretold for him – but the thought of not being told what to do by anyone, of being able to stop and look at whatever he liked for as long as he liked, to never be sent off by people stronger than him to pick grith in the fields, or be sacrificed to the Overlord, or to do some quest no one would ever thank him for, was an awfully appealing one. To be unimportant and unnoticed and able to do what he liked: that would be splendid. To do it with Josie there as well, that would be the greatest joy he could imagine.

***

They found the waterhole that the hedgehog had spoken of, and touched for themselves the flowers on the little apricot tree. It was probably a coincidence how it had sprung back into life, Josie told herself, just as Aslan had gone by. But she did not believe herself. The waterhole was only a muddy little pool, but it had an air of peace and goodness about it. Probably, the way this world worked, the apricot tree really was a miracle, and Josie could not but help thinking of Bible stories, of Aaron’s staff sprouting almond flowers and Jesus cursing the fig tree.

Blackbriar hung well back at first, as if nervous of this place where Aslan had been, but after a little while she came up to wander around Josie like a tame dog.

Tash waded out into the pool and splashed water over his head, churning up the bottom.

‘We should get some water, first,’ chided Josie. ‘You will make it all muddy.’

‘I am sorry,’ said Tash, and stopped his splashing. ‘It is good here. It is warmer than the river was. You should come in.’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Josie, and busied herself pulling out the bedclothes and setting them up next to the apricot tree, where the smell of the flowers was strongest. They smelled sweeter than almost any flowers Josie had smelled before, and had a faint feeling of the same frightening good magic that she always felt in the hidden room of the castle. Or maybe that was her imagination. It was strange to think of the statues that had stood for so long in the hidden garden, like Tash, coming to life and running to this very pool. She wondered what would have happened if she had tried to bring them to life herself, as Tash had once suggested. Maybe she would have been swept out on this journey long ago.

Blackbriar nosed down to the pool’s edge, and Josie heard quieter splashing than Tash had made.

‘It is very nice, Josie,’ said Tash, a little plaintively.

‘All right,’ said Josie at last. She did feel dreadfully sticky with dried sweat after the day’s walking. ‘I guess there is no hope for it not being muddy now.’ She stripped off her clothes and joined her husband and the dog in the pool. Her feet squelched deeply into the mud

‘It is warmer than the river,’ admitted Josie. ‘I don’t think I am likely to be any cleaner when I come out than before I went in, though.’ She washed the sweat from her face, and did her best to do something with her hair, which had grown very disorderly on the journey.

‘I wonder about the leopard and the deer,’ said Josie. ‘What they are like. What their story was. They must have been more or less nice, or the lion wouldn’t have bothered to turn them back from stone. I wonder how they came to Telmar, and what they did to get turned to stone, and what they are doing going off with the lion – Aslan – now.’

‘That is a lot of wondering,’ said Tash. ‘I know what it is like. There are so many things to wonder about.’

‘I guess there are things we just have to accept we will never know,’ said Josie. ‘God knows there seem to have been a tremendous number of them since I came here.’ She sighed, and ducked her head under the water again.

Josie’s thoughts shied away from the quest that had been described to her. The quest still hung in midair, neither abandoned nor accepted. They had travelled further than they had meant to travel with Blackbriar; maybe they would just keep travelling, without ever making a decision, and would end up doing what the Lion wanted, travelling with Blackbriar all the way to the lands of men. Or maybe they would decide to turn back: now, or tomorrow, or the day after, or at the border of the land of men, however many weeks from now that might be. Josie really did not know what she would do. She thought of the apricot tree, and she thought of the fig tree that had been cursed in her own world, and she thought about what might happen to Tash in the lands of men – the men whose ways were not so unlike those of the gazelles, the men who bought ifrit girls as wives.

Josie felt one of Tash’s hands on her leg, underneath the water, and a current of exaltation that was by now familiar ran through her body.

‘Blackbriar, why don’t you scout about?’ she said. ‘There may be interesting things around here.’

Obediently, Blackbriar paddled out of the pool and shook herself dry, then darted away into the undergrowth.

 

A morning’s walk beyond the pool brought the three travellers by way of a long gentle slope to the top of a hill where Tash set Josie down. The wind blew strong in their faces as they stood side by side, bringing the scent of distant places, fine dust and leaves that reminded Josie of the gum trees of home.

‘It is all empty and blue beyond,’ said Tash.

‘Empty and blue?’ asked Josie. She could not smell anything like the sea, and the air was dry.

‘There are no more trees, and it is very flat, and goes on and on until it is all blurry and fades into the clouds. There are beasts moving out there, very small and far away.’ Tash sounded impressed.

Josie thought of Moses looking out from Mount Nebo at the Promised Land. This was different, though; this was not the place they had longed to go all their lives and were now forbidden to enter, but somewhere quite different.

‘It sounds like it will be an easy enough country to travel on in,’ said Josie.

The dog was already eagerly pressing to move on, running forward and then back to make hopeful sounds back at Josie.

‘There is something that could be a tower, a long way off in the direction the sun rises,’ said Tash.

‘This is as far as we go,’ said Josie, not knowing until she had said the words that she would say them.

‘I’m not sure,’ admitted Tash. ‘It might not be a tower.’

‘Dear Blackbriar,’ Josie called to the dog, who came up and nuzzled at her ankles. ‘We will leave you to seek Aslan from here. It looks like a nice flat country to travel in, without any rivers.’

Blackbriar wagged her tail as if she were a tame dog, but only for a moment, and then stood there panting uncertainly at Josie.

‘We must part here,’ said Josie sadly. ‘I am not ready to go to the lands of men.’

Blackbriar bowed her head, and but did not leave. She nosed about Josie’s legs hopefully.

‘No, this is far enough,’ said Josie, squatting down to pet the dog. ‘Good luck on your journey, dear Blackbriar. I hope you will find what you seek, and restore your people. I hope we will meet again. I expect everything will work out, and we will meet again as well.’

Blackbriar licked Josie’s hand, then padded over to Tash with a pretended carelessness. He put down a hand, and she licked it as well.

‘I hope everything will be good,’ said Tash awkwardly. ‘Goodbye.’

‘Maybe one day we will meet again,’ said Josie.’Goodbye, Blackbriar.’

‘Arf,’ said Blackbriar. She did not leave at once, but after a few more moments of hopeful waiting trotted off down the stony hillside to the south. Josie listened to the clicks of her claws on the stones until she could hear her no more. She felt an enormous sense of relief.

‘Goodbye’ said Josie softly. She took one of Tash’s handa.

‘What are you thinking of, Tash?’

‘Those places. All the other places,’ said Tash. ‘The worlds are so very large and interesting.’

‘The smell of the new country makes me want to go there, too,’ said Josie.

‘There must be a way,’ said Tash.

‘We will visit many places,’ said Josie, kissing Tash’s hand. ‘Together.’ She kissed it again. ‘One day.’ They stood there for a long moment feeling the dusty gum tree wind on their faces.

‘Home?’ suggested Josie.

‘Yes,’ said Tash warmly. ‘Let us go home.’

***

As Tash turned his back on the blue vastness, he saw in a small patch of sandy ground nearby great footprints, like the ones he had seen in the walled garden after the earthquake. The footprints of a lion, leading south. And a fear and a sadness and a horror hid all his happiness from him, like a cloud passing over the sun.


	20. Interlude

Tash and Josie made their camp again on the banks of the big river, where the air was filled with the scent of fresh water and flowers. Josie was exhausted. She was not used to travelling for so many days in a row, even though she had been carried a great deal of the way, and it had been more of a strain than she realised to travel with Blackbriar. The dog had been a constant reminder of how she was shirking the duty laid upon her by the Lion god, and just how anxious this had made her, and how weary being anxious had made her, she had not realised until they had parted ways.

Josie felt good to be on the way back to her home in the Valley of Telmar, grim and dreary though it might be. But at the same time it was nice to be here, in the more open lowland country with its sunshine and strawberry-smelling flowers and raucous songbirds. And it felt very good to be able to talk freely with Tash, and touch Tash whenever she wanted, without worrying about what Blackbriar might think.

Josie and Tash had both decided, without having to say anything, that it would be good to stay by the side of the river for a few days to rest. ‘A holiday,’ Josie said. ‘It will be like a holiday for a few days.’ She felt pleased and comfortable to have seen Blackbriar safely on her way to the human countries. She felt like things were turning out the way she wanted them to, and that she was finding a way around Aslan and the prophecies he had troubled Tash with. It was a good life in this world, since they had gotten rid of the Sorceror: far better than the prospect of being an unwanted burden – practically an orphan – in a strange cruel country and far, far better than the horrible world Tash had come from. So they had made their camp by the side of the big river, and Tash caught fish – the fish were very nice here, Josie thought, even better than the ones Tash caught from the pool in the Vale of Telmar -and they picked shoots of sweet grasses and the sorts of flowers that you can eat to stretch out the supplies they had brought with them. They took a bit of getting used to, but were more like salad things than anything that grew in the Vale of Telmar, and Josie realised how much she had missed fresh greens living in the castle.

The first night they were there Tash gathered rather a lot of fallen wood, and they built a cheerful fire to cook fish on and sit around afterwards.

‘You have not told me any stories of your world for a long time,’ said Tash.

‘I suppose I haven’t,’ said Josie. She felt like you doubtless do when someone asks you of a sudden to tell them a story, and you instantly seem to forget all the stories you have ever known.

‘The ones you told me before seemed to have many useful things in them,’ said Tash. ‘Maybe there are things in the stories that can help us now, since we seem to be tangled up in so many different stories.’

‘Well, I can try,’ said Josie. ‘Well, there were once a group of people by a river, like we are, and one of them was a girl who was younger than me, who was there with her big sister. They had been out on little boats on the river, rowing – do you know what that is, Tash?’

***

‘Yes,’ said Tash, remembering the rafts rowed by slaves that he had seen once, gliding across the broad grey lakes of his own world, and thinking how useless he had been then.

‘And it was a hot afternoon, and rather dull, so this girl was rather bored. Her name was Alice. And she wandered away from her big sister and the other older people who were talking about uninteresting things, and then she saw a rabbit run by. And it would not be very interesting to see a rabbit run by, except for two things: it had a pocket watch – that is a sort of instrument like some of the ones in the castle, which has a little hand that moves around and around and shows what time of day it is – and it was talking. It said: ‘Goodness me, I’m late.’ So Alice got up and ran after it, because this was mysterious, and followed it into the hole it had gone into. It was larger than ordinary rabbits, so Alice could fit in its hole without any trouble. And as she went along, it got steeper and steeper, and then she was falling through the air. She kept falling and falling, and though she was frightened at first, it went on so long that she stopped being frightened, and even fell asleep, and thought that maybe she would keep falling all the way through to the other side of the world.’

Josie went on with the story of Alice as well as she could remember it, and the images that formed in Tash’s mind were as much of Ua as of the world he was in now, since he had never been to Josie’s world and did not know what it was like. He did not like to think of Josie or Nera going off alone and having dangerous adventures, and those were the only two images of human girls he had in his mind, so he imagined Alice as one of his thalarka sisters. A nicer one than any he had in real life, of course. Thalarka did not cry, but the struggling to remain undrowned in the tears cried by the giant Alice was a scene Tash could well imagine from his own world. He was very taken with the idea of ‘unbirthday presents’ – even birthday presents were a strange and wonderful idea, imagining them as if they were a thing that was on Tash’s world. When Josie got up to the bit with the Queen of Hearts it was very easy to imagine the tyrant as one of the High Commanders of the javelin-women of the Overlord, with long spikes on her armour and a voice that commanded obedience.

‘You do her voice very well,’ said Tash, admiringly.

‘Pfah,’ said Josie. ‘I don’t want to command anyone’s head to be chopped off.’ But she still sounded rather pleased.

The water of the river was too cold to stay in long, but was fresh and bracing, and each morning the first thing they did was throw themselves into it to wake themselves up. Then they would splash each other, and Josie would shriek, and afterwards they would lie side by side on a broad rock in the sunlight until they had quite dried off. The third morning they did this, Josie rolled over onto Tash, who was almost dry, and warmed quite through by the sun.

‘This is a better world, Tash,’ she said, using him as a pillow.

‘It is much better than my world,’ Tash agreed. ‘Even if there are sorcerors and people to tell us what to do, they do not just make us do it, like they did on my world. And the food is much nicer.’

‘And we are together,’ said Josie, rubbing her hand over his chest. ‘I miss people from my world – but the ones I miss most were gone before I left. I am glad I found you.’

‘I am glad I found you,’ said Tash. ‘I do not miss anyone.’ The smell of Josie and the closeness of her to him were beginning to work on Tash, like they always did. His hands began to play along Josie’s back, from her feet all the way up to her hair, lingering longest at her neck and the backs of her knees.

Josie kissed his throat. ‘I don’t know if we can stay together forever,’ she said. ‘But nobody knows that, do they? Maybe something will happen to drag us apart, like we were pulled into this world, or maybe it won’t. But I intend to stay here with you as long as I possibly, possibly can.’ She stretched up and kissed Tash’s beak then, boldly running her tongue where Tash could easily have bitten the tip of it off. Tash ran his hands over his wife’s cool skin and inhaled the smell of her, but his thoughts were still disturbed: he could not help thinking of what he had read, or dreamed he had read, in the Books of Tash, and of what he had heard from the Lion Aslan.

Josie seemed to be able to tell that he was distracted. ‘Don’t worry,’ she told him. ‘Nothing is foretold, dear Tash. Not really. We can make our own lives on this world.’

‘It-‘ said Tash. ‘It is possible.’ But he was not convinced. This Aslan was like the Overlord of this world, after all, and sooner or later, he felt in his bones, the story of Tash would end up with him being sacrificed to the greater glory of someone.

‘I know what the Lion said, Tash. I know what Blackbriar said. But we have not done what he wanted, and nothing horrible has happened, has it?’

‘No,’ said Tash, playing with Josie’s hair. It looked so splendid in the sunlight, so much like the very shiniest of the metals that the men of Telmar made ornaments with. Josie was right. Nothing horrible had happened yet. Maybe it wouldn’t; or maybe it would, but not for a long time.

‘You smell so very nice, Tash,’ she murmured. ‘Oh.’

‘You smell nice too,’ said Tash. It was a strange yet now familiar smell, the smell of Josie, and it made things stir and tumble inside him. She seemed so much like the Mistress of Telmar today, Tash felt: she was a wild and triumphant thing, and she wanted to be touched with a demanding insistence.

‘Tash?’ said Josie, and her voice was more breathless than usual, and very bold, and like she sounded when she was going to tease him, all at once. ‘Husband Tash?’

‘Yes, my Josie?’ said Tash.

‘I am yours forever and ever,’ said Josie.

And there was no doubt that she was really and truly the Bride of Tash.

***

Nothing important happened to Josie and Tash while they were camped by the side of the river, except for the thing that happened at the end of their time there. If that thing had not happened, they would have always remembered that place happily, for they were happy together there. I like to remember Josie and Tash being happy together, and wish I could tell you that they lived happily ever after; or that they lived happily together for a long long time without anything bad happening to them, until the time came for Tash to make a choice between the two Books of Tash, many many years later. But I am afraid I can’t. This last little bit has all been just stalling – which has probably been obvious. I could have just written ‘They went back to Telmar the way they came,’ and then gone on with the next chapter.


	21. Josie and the Brigands

On the afternoon of the fifth day they were camped by the river, Tash went off looking for a better place to fish. ‘There are more good fish in this river,’ he told Josie. ‘I can tell. But they have learned that I am here, and there is so much water for them to hide in.’

‘Good luck, Tash,’ she called after him, and settled down to listen dozily to the sounds of the river.

The kinds of sounds a river makes, as I am sure you know, are the kinds of sounds that make you more conscious of the fact that your bladder is full, and after she had lain resting awhile this outweighed Josie’s desire to keep laying there doing nothing. ‘Bother,’ she said, and got up and walked a little ways away from the stream. Once Josie was further from the stream she could other sounds. There was the crunching of undergrowth underfoot, branches being pulled back and let go: the sounds of someone approaching. Could Tash be back already? No, he had gone upriver, and the sounds were very clearly coming from downriver.

Josie hastily returned to the camp. There was no way to hide their things before whoever it was came this way- before they came this way, for there were two separate pairs of feet. They sounded to Josie much more like men than beasts. And they were very close, the sounds they had made as they approached muted by the swollen river.

‘Hail!’ called a voice. ‘Is someone there?’ It was the first voice of a man Josie had heard since the death of Yustus. It had the gruff, confident tone of the kind of man who lives his life out of doors doing things that do not need a lot of artful thinking or book-learning, but a great willingness to take risks and an easy sort of halfway-decent competence in all manner of practical things. It was the kind of voice she had heard often when she was growing up, and it instantly made her feel smaller again, more like the girl Josephine Furness and less like Josie, Mistress of Telmar.

‘Hail!’ called Josie back, trying to sound strong and confident.

‘Why, it’s a maiden!’ the voice said with some surprise, drawing nearer. There was some broad male laughter. ‘And a northern lass, if my eyes do not deceive me. What possessed you to journey in these wilds, northern lass?’

The two men had walked up swiftly since Josie had admitted her presence, and now stood with her at the edge of the patch of sandy ground where she had made camp. She could smell the stale breath of men who eat a great deal of meat and are not particular about cleaning their teeth, and their sweat, and an oil rather like the oil they had used back home for oiling saddles.

‘I am travelling through,’ said Josie. ‘My companions- companion and I.’

She felt it would not be a good idea to volunteer too much about who she was and where she was going.

‘Why, that is the very thing we and our company are doing,’ said the man who had spoken. He laughed again. ‘Where are you bound? It might be we could travel together.’

‘I would rather not say,’ said Josie.

‘Is something wrong with your eyes?’ asked the second man. He had a more cunning, thoughtful sort of voice that reminded Josie uncomfortably of the magician Yustus.

‘I am blind,’ said Josie.

‘That is a great pity, lass,’ said the first man. ‘That means you cannot see the handsome face of Arishan here. He is accounted a great beauty back at home.’

‘Tell us of your companion,’ said Arishan. ’Is she a northern maiden, like yourself?’

‘No,’ said Josie. ‘He is a man. A big, strong man.’

‘There is just one bed made here,’ pointed out the man named Arishan in his unpleasant oily voice.

‘My companion is my husband,’ said Josie.

‘A fortunate man he must be, to have such a courteous and well-formed wife,’ said the first man.

‘I cannot see any man’s clothing among your things here,’ said Arishan. ‘I hope your husband has not deserted you.’

‘No, he will be back very soon,’ said Josie, starting to feel rattled.

‘Well, we can wait for him, then,’ said Arishan. ‘It will be good to make his acquaintance. No doubt he will see we mean no harm, and feel free to tell us where you are bound.’ He sat down heavily on the bed of blankets that Josie had arranged.

‘Sit down a while, lass, and be hospitable,’ said the first man. ‘There is no need for us to stand here as if we were two watchmen questioning a thief.’

With great reluctance Josie sat down on the opposite side of the ashy firepit from Arishan. The first man plunked himself down next to her.

‘Well,’ said Arishan. ‘We can think of something to do to pass the time until your husband returns.’ Josie could hear him getting something that clattered out of his pockets; a cup and dice, from the sound of it. ‘Do you like games?’

‘No,’ said Josie, shaking her head.

‘I have never seen a girl as white as you, lass,’ said the first man. ‘Are you a Narnian?’

‘No,’ said Josie.

‘Just as well,’ said the man. ‘I have heard it said that Narnian girls look fair enough in most of their parts, but are as dark and hairy as an ape in their nethers.’ He laughed again, and Josie furrowed her brows in anger. ‘I expect your husband could tell us the truth of that, eh, lass?’ He slapped a hand like a slab of salt pork down on Josie’s thigh in an insolent and inappropriate way.

‘You should go,’ said Josie, angrily trying to get to her feet, but the man grabbed her roughly and would not let her.

‘Or we could check for ourselves,’ he said, clutching Josie around the middle and chuckling as she kicked futilely. The smell of stale sweat on him was vile.

‘Let me go!’ said Josie, trying to command like the Mistress of Telmar, but sounding shrill and panicked even to herself.

‘Rozek, stop scaring the girl with your rough talk,’ called Arishan. ‘Put her down.’

‘She’s wriggling too much,’ said Rozek.

‘Stop it,’ said the second man in a voice edged with steel. Grumbling, Rozek tossed her to the ground. Josie gathered herself together and sat with her arms and legs curled up protectively, waiting for a chance to make her escape.

‘We have to do this properly,’ said Arishan, in a voice that made Josie’s skin crawl. ‘We cast lots to see who gets first go at the girl. Odd or evens?’

‘Evens,’ growled Rozek. ‘Best out of three.’

Josie heard the cup rattling, and the dice turned out. ‘Six and three,’ said Arishan.

Was that the sound of someone approaching? It was hard to hear noises in the wood over the sounds of the river. Josie strained her ears.

The cup rattled again. ‘Six and one- look upon them and despair,’ said Arishan, with a horrible glee.

‘Bugger,’ said Rozek.

Yes, someone was definitely coming. Josie leapt to hear feet while the brigands were distracted by their dice and charged off towards the noise. ‘Tash!’ she called out. ‘Tash!’

She slipped on an uneven patch of ground and tumbled, scrambled to her feet and ran forward, and then she was suddenly almost trampled by a pony ridden by someone who was not Tash. The pony was as alarmed at nearly trampling her as she was at nearly being trampled. The rider did something vicious to it and it stood still, breathing heavily.

‘Rozek? What’s this?’ called the angry voice of the rider. It was a higher pitch than the voices of Rozek or Arishan, but sounded no less masculine and rough.

‘Found this lass,’ said Rozek, who had given chase and was now catching up. He grabbed hold of Josie’s arm. ‘Says she’s out here with her husband, but won’t say where they’re going.’

‘So you thought you’d chase her all over the wilderness? Orders are to bring any strangers straight to the commander. You know that. ’

‘We were waiting for the fellow to turn up,’ said Arishan, walking up more slowly and somehow sounding reasonable even to Josie’s ears.

‘Yes, and what do you think he’ll do if he comes back to find two louts like you pawing his woman? Whip out his sword first and ask questions later, and he ends up dead and we don’t learn a damned thing from him. Or, more likely, he kills you two and gets clean away, when we’d have him at twelve to one if he had to track you back to the camp. Are you completely stupid? Settle down, you.’ He said this last to Josie, who was struggling to wrench her arm free from Rozek’s grip.

‘I’m fortunate you showed up to deal with things properly, then,’ said Arishan drily. ‘This man may not exist at all. There are only woman’s clothes here.’

‘Shut up,’ said the rider. ‘Get up behind me, lass. Rozek, put her up behind.’

‘She’s blind, Karasp,’ said Rozek, lifting up the struggling Josie like a sack of oats and putting her on the back of the pony.

The rider made a contemptuous noise at the other brigands. ‘Hold on tight,’ he told Josie.

‘Please, can’t you just leave me here?’ she asked, reluctantly putting her arms around the man’s chest. ‘My husband-‘

‘Sorry, lass,’ said Karasp. ‘Orders are to bring any strangers to talk to the commander. Orders these fools seem to have forgotten. Hold on. If you fall off you’ll bash your head in, like as not.’

‘I have ridden before,’ said Josie. Through her fear of what might happen with these coarse men, she felt a pang of melancholy. She had used to ride double with Gerry almost every day.

The pony took off through the woods at a brisk trot for a good twenty minutes, with enough twistings and turnings that Josie was not at all sure which direction they were from the river. Josie could hear the crackling of a fire, and the sound of a good many horses and men – the dozen the rider had mentioned seemed to be about the right number of each. Her arrival had caused quite a stir, from the voices she could hear as she climbed down from the back of the pony. It was obviously completely unexpected to find a girl in the wilderness, with her pale skin adding an additional thrill of exotic detail. Without ado, Karasp hustled her into what seemed to be a large tent. The hubbub outside suddenly dimmed, and she could smell perfume and roast poultry, rather than just wood-smoke and unwashed man and beast.

‘An interesting find, Karasp,’ said a voice. It was probably the least unpleasant voice Josie had heard yet from a man in this new world, a strong resonant voice she could imagine reading from the Bible on Sunday mornings. It sounded friendly enough on the surface, but Josie could tell there was something unyielding and implacable beneath. It was, in a way, an even more frightening voice than Arishan’s. ‘Who is this young lady?’

‘Arishan found her by the river,’ said Karasp. ‘About half a league upstream. Apparently she’s blind. She says she’s travelling with her husband, but hasn’t said where they’re bound. Arishan said there were only woman’s clothes where she was camped.’

‘I see,’ said the commander. Josie could hear him stepping closer to her, and knew she was being scrutinised.

‘Young lady, my name is Ormuz, and my companions and I are bound on a voyage of discovery,’ he said in a friendly tone. ‘To make a long story short, word has come to us in a distant land that the mage of Telmar is dead and his slaves flown, so the treasures of Telmar lie open to be taken by anyone. Such a chance comes only once in a lifetime, if that.’ Ormuz paused, and added in the same friendly voice, as if he was an old friend of the family being introduced to Josie in her mother’s parlour. ‘You see, I am quite open about who I am, and what my business is. If you could do me the honour of replying in kind, in as much as you are able, it would be a fair and courteous act.’

‘I,’ said Josie. ‘I am not able to tell you my business.’

‘That’s too bad,’ said Commander Ormuz. ‘Karasp, fetch a seat for our guest, and something for her to eat. I will get her something to drink myself.’

Karasp found something like a camp-stool for Josie and she reluctantly sat down on it.

‘If you are not free to tell me your business, perhaps you would be good enough to tell me your name?’ Josie could hear the commander getting bottles and cups from a chest, pouring out two drinks.

‘My name is Miss Furness,’ said Josie.

‘Like furnace?’ said the commander. ‘It is a curious name, but not an ill-favoured one. I know of no place in the world where it would be customary to name such a fair lady after such an instrument of smoke and fire, but the world is large. Here.’ He pressed into Josie’s hand a largish tumbler of something that smelled rather like sherry. ‘You must have had a hard time of it. Drink.’

Josie warily took a sip and found that it almost immediately warmed her right through.

‘It must be very difficult travelling in these lands without being able to see,’ said the commander. ‘Your husband must be very brave and resourceful, to bring you on such a journey. Set it down there Karasp, yes.’ The brigand Karasp set a plate with some kind of roast bird on it down next to Josie.

‘He is,’ said Josie.

‘You are a fortunate woman,’ said Ormuz. ‘Though to look at you, you are hardly more than a child. Have you been married long?’

‘A few months,’ said Josie.

‘Arranged, or a love match?’

‘Love,’ said Josie.

‘And your husband takes you away into the very deepest wilderness? I am beginning to sense an elopement.’ The brigand Ormuz chuckled softly and lowered his voice, as if he was letting Josie into a secret. ‘Did your father take unkindly to your attachment to this man? You so young, and he such a reckless adventurer?’

‘No,’ said Josie. ‘It was not like that.’ The sherry – or whatever it was- made her feel less like a poor captive, and more like the bold Josie, Mistress of Telmar, who she wanted to be. Imprudently, she took another sip.

‘Still, yours must be a fine story,’ said Ormuz. ‘I am looking forward to your husband’s return, so I can see for myself who has won your heart and led you into such dangerous wilds so far from your family and home.’

Josie let this pass. She did not want to be asked any more difficult questions about Tash, and was feeling bold, so she changed the subject. ‘Your men were horrible- that Arishan, and Rozek. They were going to – to rape me. They were rolling dice for me.’

‘I am sorry, Miss Furness,’ said Ormuz, sounding stern and concerned. ‘Rest assured, they will be punished. Not to excuse them in any way, but I am afraid I had to cast my net rather wide in order to put this expedition together, and a few of my men are unsuited for civilised company. When your husband arrives, I will have them flogged in his presence.’

‘Good,’ said Josie. She took another drink of the almost-sherry, and found to her surprise that the tumbler was empty.

‘You should let me go,’ she said. ‘Back to my camp. Tash- my husband- will be unhappy if he does not find me there.’

‘I am sorry, Miss Furness,’ said Ormuz. ‘In light of what you have told me about the scoundrels in my employ, I am inclined to keep you here where they cannot cause you any more trouble. I hope you do not mind. May I refill your cup?’

Josie did not actually say she did not want her cup refilled, so in a moment she found that it had been, and she could not help taking another mouthful. She was feeling quite warm through now, and very brave and queenly.

‘He will not be pleased to find me here,’ she said. ‘It would be better for you if you brought me back.’

‘I am sure he will be displeased,’ said the commander apologetically. ‘But I will explain everything to him, and I am sure he will understand.’

‘Oh,’ said Josie, taking another drink. She supposed what the commander was saying made a kind of sense.

‘I am glad you like the wine,’ said Ormuz. ‘I had it from a caravan near Teebeth. I have carried it a very long way, hoping for an appropriate guest to serve it to.’

‘Thank you,’ said Josie. ‘It is rather sweet.’ She tasted the inside of her mouth. There was some subtle flavour in the wine that she recognised, but could not place exactly, a bitter but not entirely unpleasant undertone.

‘Tell me,’ said commander Ormuz suddenly, in a sharper voice. ‘What do you know of Telmar?’

‘Nothing,’ said Josie. ‘Well, nothing besides that there was an evil magician there who commanded ifrits, who was the last of the men of Telmar who had been turned into beasts by Aslan long ago.’

‘That is the story that the wise tell in my country, as well, Miss Furness,’ said Ormuz. ‘Where did you hear this tale?’

‘A gazelle told me,’ said Josie.

‘A gazelle!’ Ormuz laughed. ‘Tell me, Miss Furness- would you be surprised to hear that the place Telmar lies no great distance from here?’

‘No,’ said Josie. ‘I mean, yes.’ She was starting to feel a little lightheaded.

‘No, indeed,’ said Ormuz. ‘Perhaps a week’s journey north of here. Perhaps even less. According to the tales I have heard, we are almost there. We go to seek its treasures. Does your husband, or whoever you are travelling with, perhaps go to seek the same thing?’

‘No,’ said Josie. She set her face in a way that was meant to look proud and defiant. She felt suddenly as if the tent was spinning around her.

‘I feel dizzy,’ said Josie. She set down her tumbler, which was empty again.

‘Perhaps you drank the wine too quickly,’ suggested Ormuz. ‘If you are not used to it, it is easy to do. Just answer my question, and then you can lie down and rest until your head clears. Are you going to Telmar?’

‘No,’ said Josie.

‘Are you certain?’ said the commander. His voice was close now, smooth and unyielding and implacable and not friendly at all.

‘I won’t let you have it,’ snapped Josie unreasonably. Her voice sounded blurry and odd to herself, so she repeated her words. ‘I won’t let you have it.’

‘I am in the habit of having whatever I want,’ said Ormuz, with a chilling calmness. ‘I should not be so confident if I were you.’

‘It is mine,’ said Josie angrily. ‘I am Mistress of Telmar. We defeated the magician, and we can defeat you.’ She went to stand, and found it more of a struggle to get up than she expected.

‘You are mysterious, that is certain,’ said Ormuz. He took her arm and dragged her to her feet. ‘I do not suppose there is one part of truth in twenty of what you have told me. And there is some power to you, I can see that. But enough to hold Telmar against my company? I think not.’

Ormuz was leading her deeper into the tent. She felt something soft beneath her feet, and struggled to keep her balance. ‘Let me go,’ she said angrily, jerking her arm away from him. He let her go, but she found she could not stand alone, and slumped to her knees on what seemed to be a pile of blankets.

‘So you have already reached Telmar?’ said Ormuz. ‘How many are there of your company? Tell me more of this husband of yours.’

‘He is strong and brave,’ said Josie. ‘We will stop you.’ At least, that is what she meant to say, but her voice did not obey her, and she was not sure what she ended up saying.

‘I am still in doubt as to whether you have a husband at all,’ said the brigand leader. He grabbed Josie’s ankle and pulled her leg out so that she fell backwards on the blankets. Feebly, she tried to get up, but she could do no more than raise herself on her elbows. She could feel the warmth of whatever had been in the drink filling her veins, filling her bones, making her slow and soft as before it had made her rash and heedless. ‘Your insolence has made me angry, Miss Furnace,’ said Ormuz.

‘We will stop you,’ Josie tried to say again, but her mouth would not obey her.

She could smell Ormuz close to her face now, rank animal sweat beneath his perfume. ‘I may have given you too much, too fast,’ he was saying. He made a little noise to chide himself. ‘There is probably no point asking you any more questions tonight, but there is time enough to teach you not to be so insolent, before your wits flee you entirely.’

Josie felt the loathesome touch of the brigand’s hands on her legs, shoving her skirts upward. She wanted to curse the brigand and claw at his eyes, to drive her knee up between his legs and kick him viciously, but could only mumble at him and flail feebly.

‘What lovely white skin you have, Miss Furnace,’ said Ormuz. ‘It is a shame you cannot see yourself, but I suppose that saves you from vanity.’

Tash, Josie tried to call out. Tash, help me! Tash, Tash, Tash! ‘Tash,’ she managed to say, in a strangled whisper.

‘You little Narnian whore,’ Ormuz growled, in quite a different voice than he had used before, with no smoothness in it at all.


	22. Tash and the Brigands

Tash had felt the same sense of relief Josie had when they bid goodbye to Blackbriar and turned their faces back towards Telmar, a sense that he was turning back to a nest of safety in a dangerous and irritating world. The empty blue lands had called to him, and part of him would have liked to stride out across them, seeing new places each day and meeting peculiar new people; but the greater part of him wanted only to return to the place where he had a good idea of where everything was, and people were unlikely to bother him, and he could curl up with Josie whenever they liked.

This camp by the riverside was a good something-in-between, and he had quite enjoyed their brief holiday there. It was a pity that Josie was still so tired, and had stayed behind at their camp, he thought: but she was never patient with fishing anyway, and she would be pleased with what he had found for her when he came back.

Tash had spent longer than he had expected to, cheerfully tracking the big fish to their deep lurking pool and gathering two of them. By the time he returned to Josie the cloudless sky was a pink shading to grey, and the birds of evening were making their first tentative forays across it. He tarried a little to watch them from time to time, fascinated; they were such interesting creatures, like nothing he had known on his old world.

Josie had not yet lit the fire, Tash noticed as he drew nearer. Perhaps she had fallen asleep? He hurried on, feeling uneasy, and became very much more so when he found no sign of Josie at the camp.

‘Josie?’ he called out. ‘Josie!’

Tash cast about for any signs of his wife. In one place the bracken underfoot seemed to have been trampled by some large creature; in a soft patch of earth by the river, there was the booted footprint of a man. Strangers had been here. Josie had gone with them. No, she had been taken. She would not have gone willingly. She would not have left everything so scattered about. And he could smell that she had been afraid.

The light was failing, and it was not clear which way the strangers had gone. Tash crouched down at the edge of the camp, put his arms over his head and tried to think. He had come from upriver and had heard or seen nothing; perhaps they had come from downriver? If any of them were still near, they were sure to find him; he had shouted lfor Josie loud enough. He crouched for a few long minutes, forcing himself to breathe slowly, listening as hard as he could. He heard nothing but the birds and the river. When no one came, he got to his feet and struck off into the shadowy forest.

Tash saw the fire of the brigands’ camp about three hours into the night after he had walked a wide circle through the woods, frightening woodland creatures as he passed them by. While he walked he had forced himself to stay calm, to conserve his energy, making himself into an instrument for finding Josie, but when he saw the light he began to seethe with rage. Who were these men, to take his Josie? Tash quickened his stride and moved towards the flickering flames, dimly aware of the voices of men and the noises of beasts already alarmed at his approach.

‘Halt!’ called a voice. ‘Name yourself, if you are man or talking beast.’ It was the voice of a human man, but Tash could tell nothing more about it.

‘Where is Josie?’ Tash called in response.

‘Put down your weapons, and advance slowly,’ said the voice. Then it said, ‘By the Lion!’, for Tash had not slowed at all on being told to halt, but had continued to stride angrily on, and his bulk had just become visible on the edge of the firelight. Horses whinnied in alarm, and men scurried for their weapons. They were dark men like Yustus, Tash saw, but most were taller and more heavyset than he had been, and they wore unkempt beards.

‘Halt!’ called one of the men, pointing a complicated sort of bow at Tash.

‘Where is Josie?’ called Tash again, his voice rising to an inhuman roar.

‘What is that beast?’ called one of the men. ‘He is a monster from Telmar,’ said another, and raised his hands to his face in a sign to ward off evil. But the men who had more of their wits about them had swords in their hands, or arrows notched to bowstrings, so there were a good half-dozen weapons pointed at Tash by the time he was near enough to feel the heat of the fire.

‘I don’t know of any Josie,’ said a smooth voice that seemed to hold less fear than the others. The man who belonged to this voice had come striding up swiftly at the first sounds of alarm, and now stood closer to Tash than any of the men who had their weapons trained on him. This man had a beard that was more neatly trimmed than the others, and wore a polished leather breastplate with the image of some insect embossed on it. He spoke as if he met apparitions such as Tash as a matter of course, and held his curved sword in a way that somehow contrived to be neither defensive nor aggressive. A leader must never show fear before his followers, Tash remembered learning on the world of the Thalarka. This one is afraid of me, like the others, but he cannot show it.

‘Is Josie a creature like yourself? Or is it a man you seek?,’ asked the smooth-voiced man. ‘For it might be that we seek the same man. Tell me more, and it may be we can help one another.’

The man stepped took another step closer, keeping his eyes fixed on Tash and his voice calm and steady. ‘We are looking-‘ he began, but he did not finish.

Tash could smell Josie on the smooth-voiced man. With a cry of inarticulate rage, he lashed out. The man was quick with his sword, and brought his blade in position to block Tash’s blow, but the strength that would have stopped a strong human warrior’s swordarm was not enough to stop Tash. The sword cut deep into Tash’s arms, and in one of them stopped at bone; but the other arm carried through and struck the man’s throat, with force enough that things inside it splintered. The man staggered backward, dropping his weapon, gurgling and clutching at the air.

‘Kill it!’ called a man. Tash felt arrows tearing into his flesh, and heard the sickening sound they made as they stuck there. The bowmen had encircled him, so they could not fire high for fear of hitting one another, and most of their shots struck him in the legs.

One man was bolder than the others and came at Tash with his sword. The blade stabbed deep into Tash’s side a little above his waist. Without thinking, Tash brought his beak down into the man’s neck, cutting through artery and windpipe in a single swift bite. The intrepid swordsman’s momentum carried him forward and he fell behind Tash, fountaining blood.

Tash had never been in so much pain, but he did not care. He kicked at the fire, sending up a storm of dancing sparks. Another arrow sank deeply into his back. The taste of the brigand’s blood was sweet in his mouth.

‘Where is Josie?’ he shouted.

‘Keep your distance,’ said one of the men, waving the others back. ‘Keep shooting it. It is too strong.’

The horses were maddened by Tash’s violence and now one broke free of its bonds, kicking wildly and careening wildly off into the darkness. Curses, screams, and inarticulate conflicting orders filled the air. The tear in Tash’s side burned and bled.

Tash pounced to the nearest of the brigands, a bowman who was fumbling to notch another arrow to his bowstring, and broke both his arms in one motion, twisting them like saplings.

‘Where is Josie?’ he cried again. ‘Where is she?’ More arrows struck Tash, but no other swordsman dared to come near. He grabbed a tentpole and drove it through the chest of one of the bowmen who was not standing quite far enough away.

‘The monster will kill us all,’ called one of the men.

Inexorably, irresistibly, heedless of his wounds, Tash hacked his way through the camp, searching for his wife. The brigands fell away before him. The man whose arms Tash had broken wailed in agony. Red foam bubbled from the mouth of the one Tash had impaled with the tentpole.

‘In the commander’s tent,’ called a man with an angular face, one of those who had held back from the fight. ‘The wine-red tent. The girl is in there.’

Tash tore into the big wine-red tent, which was still too small for him to stand upright in. On a bed of blankets at the rear of it Josie lay insensible, her legs showing white in the darkness. She smelled of the smooth-voicced man.

‘Josie?’ Tash gathered her up. She lay limply in his arms, but she groaned at the sound of his voice, and he could not see any wound on her. She was alive.

A wild exultant happiness welled up in Tash. ‘Sweeter than narbul venom is it to serve the Mistress of Telmar,’ he intoned in a soft voice, wrapping his arms around Josie to protect her. He did not leave the tent the way he entered – he could hear the men coming cautiously closer to the front – but instead tore his way through the cloth at the back, bringing the tent down behind him as he fled. A few steps further they were in darkness, and Tash loped off towards the river.

At first Tash did not think of the pain at all in his joy at having Josie back. After a very little while, though, he found he could only carry her with three arms. The fourth, the one the leader of the brigands had struck with his sword, hung stiff and useless. The cries of the men carried a long way in the still night, but it did not seem that they were following, and they grew fainter and fainter as Tash crashed through the darkness. At the river side he paused. He needed to set Josie down to do two things: to gather up their things, and to remove the arrows sticking into him. The one in his back was the worst, for he wrenched it sideways as he pulled it out, and afterwards it hurt him even more than the wound in his side. It was hard to gather up Josie and start again, harder than he had thought it would be; his arms and legs felt too heavy, and he felt dizzy. And he hurt, worse and worse.

After he forded the river Tash could no longer run, only walk. With Josie clutched unconscious to his chest he walked on until dawn, then for two hours after, while the birds sang and the sun shone down on meadows carpeted with blue and white flowers. The world occasionally spun giddily around him or bucked unexpectedly, but he ignored this and walked on.

Tash had never been in so much pain for so long, and he had rarely been so tired, but he was not miserable. It was true that he had failed in allowing Josie to be captured, but he had not been at all useless in rescuing her. He had not failed Josie as he had failed Nera. He had cut through the brigands who had captured Josie: inexorably, irresistibly, and he had saved his wife. Now he would go home with her and be safe. He clung to this thought as he walked on, and it kept him happy despite all his pain.

Tash did not feel sorry for the brigands, and think that any of them might have been poor farmers’ sons impressed against their will, with doting sisters at home who would cry when they heard they were dead. Chances are that none of them were, at any rate; and if humans are not often brought up to think of their enemies in such a way, thalarka were brought up even less so when Tash was growing up.

The pain from the wound in Tash’s side had somehow spread to that whole side of his body, and from time to time he had to stop entirely as a spasm of pain went through him.

‘Tash?’ said Josie muzzily.

‘Josie?’ Tash clutched her a bit more tightly to him, and turned to look at her. Her face was paler than usual and she looked thoroughly miserable.

‘I am so glad you are here, dear Tash,’ she said, in a small weak voice. ‘I love you. Can you put me down? I feel sick.’

‘I love you,’ said Tash tenderly, carefully setting Josie down on the grass. She did not stand, or even sit properly at first, but slumped forward, holding her face just off the ground with her hands. She threw up, and then very slowly and carefully stood up, with Tash helping as much as he could manage.

‘Bleh,’ said Josie. ‘Oh, I am so glad you are here.’ She sounded a little better, Tash thought. It was so very very good to hear her voice again, even if it seemed further away then usual.

‘How are you?’ Tash asked her. ‘Did they hurt you?’

‘My head hurts, I feel ill, and – your arm is all over blood, Tash. Poor Tash. Oh, I am so sorry.’ Josie sounded very alarmed.

‘I am alright,’ said Tash. This was not true. The wound in his side had hurt him more and more as he walked, and the flow of blood from it had not stopped, trickling all the way to his feet.

‘No, you are hurt,’ said Josie. She felt him over gently, finding many of his wounds. ‘You are all over blood. Poor Tash. This one is very deep.’ He twitched and hissed at her gentlest touch, the pain making it hard for him to keep standing. ‘Oh, poor Tash, you have been hurt terribly. You must sit down.’

‘I can keep going,’ said Tash. ‘I want to get home.’

‘You are shaking,’ said Josie. ‘And over warm. Sit. Put the packs down.’

Tash obeyed. It was very easy to sit down when he began. The soft grass seemed to drag him to it. The ground rocked gently beneath him, and above him clouds made lazy circles in the painfully blue sky. In the end he found himself more lying down than sitting.

‘What happened to you?’ Tash asked Josie. He lay with his eyes closed, happy that Josie was there, waiting to hear her voice again.

Josie did not answer Tash’s question. ‘There is no water in the canteen,’ she said after a moment. ‘Is there any water near?’

‘There was a stream not long ago,’ said Tash. ‘I will take you there.’

‘No,’ said Josie firmly. ‘I think I can hear it. I will be very careful; you don’t have to worry about me. I feel much better now.’

‘I wish you could stay,’ he said mournfully.

‘I am not going far,’ she said. ‘I will be right back. Just rest for a while, dear Tash, I will be back before you know it.’ She kissed the soft downy bit of his neck and left, and he was very sorry that she was leaving, but he did not complain.

Tash listened to Josie moving slowly off across the meadow, breaking a switch from a willow, and then moving more slowly into the forest. He felt very heavy. The world, which had not rocked or spun for a while after he lay down, started to move again. He found if he stayed very still and tried to breathe very shallowly it seemed to hurt a little bit less. He tried hard to concentrate on doing this, at the same time listening hard for the sounds of Josie in the distance.


	23. The Apple

If Josie had been by herself she would have sat down and cried and cried; and if Tash had been well she would have curled up in his arms and cried and cried and cried; but he was terribly hurt, and it was up to her to help him. She could not let herself think about what had happened. The most important thing was to take it easy moving through the forest, and not trip over and break her own leg.

Josie felt in front of her and to the sides with her willow switch, pausing every few steps to listen for the sound of the water. The birds made this difficult. There was one particular sort with a parrot-like screech that kept having noisy family arguments in the treetops. She cursed the birds, and she cursed herself. How could she have let herself be captured? How could she have been so stupid as to drink what the brigands gave her? There must have been something she could have done to escape, before- before. She angrily pushed all such thoughts out of her head and concentrated on finding the stream.

Despite her brave talk to Tash, Josie had almost never gone for a walk out of doors alone in country that she had not explored before in company, especially rough country like the sort they were travelling through. Just for a moment, when she first considered how far she already come from Tash, she was struck by a wave of paralysing fear. ‘Get a hold of yourself, girl,’ she told herself firmly. ‘He is waiting for you.’

Josie found the stream, narrowly avoiding tumbling down a steep bank. In full summer there was probably only a tiny trickle of water here, or nothing at all, but when she came there it was flowing well. She filled the canteen, poured cold water on her aching head, and then quickly washed between her legs. A wave of nausea hit her while she tried to get rid of the smell of Ormuz, and she found herself throwing up again on the bank of the stream. ‘Damn that man to Hell,’ she said.

After throwing up she had to wash her face, and while doing this she found that the ruby key around her neck was missing.

‘Damn that man to Hell,’ she said again. ‘Damn him to Hell.’ She wondered for a moment what Tash had actually done to that man, wiped her face dry with her sleeve, and started off determinedly to find her husband, carefully retracing her path.

Josie began calling out to Tash once she reached the edge of the meadow, more and more nervously as she advanced. At last she heard a faint answering cry. It was behind her, and not so far away.

‘Dear Tash,’ she said, moving toward him as fast as she dared.

‘Josie,’ murmured Tash, scrabbling weakly for her hand. She took one of his and gripped it between her two hands. ‘I am here,’ she told him. ‘I am here.’

‘I think I fell asleep,’ said Tash indistinctly.

He was in a bad way. Josie was sure he felt much warmer than he usually did, and she was also sure he had not moved at all while she was away, just lain there in the meadow. She was aghast at how much blood had spilled out on the grass while he lay there. He was still bleeding in so many places. She cleaned the wounds as best she could with the water she had brought. Tash hissed when she cleaned them, but only a little; he was growing too weak.

When Tash’s wounds were clean Josie attempted to bandage them with her spare clothes. The wound in Tash’s arm was not hard to wrap, but the great gash in his side was almost impossible to cover. She tore a dress almost in two with a great deal of effort and wrapped it around him, but there was not enough padding over the wound, and blood had seeped through it before she was finished. It did not seem to have achieved anything, except to hurt Tash a great deal.

‘I’m sorry, Tash,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘I am alright,’ he said, very weakly and indistinctly.

‘No, you are not alright,’ she said. ‘There is no way you will ever get back to Telmar like this. Listen, Tash,’ she said, making a sudden irrevocable decision. ‘I brought an apple with me – one of the magic apples. You must eat it.’

‘I thought you said-‘ began Tash.

‘I would not say so if I didn’t think- if I didn’t-‘ Josie angrily wiped tears from her face. ‘Oh, dear Tash, I am so sorry.’ She had dumped her bag out on the grass to get her clothes to bandage Tash with, and as she had rummaged through them she could smell thescent of the apple on them. It was riper and stronger than when they had begun their journey, but still fresh after who can know how many years.

Josie fetched the apple and brought it to Tash. ‘Tash? Dear Tash?’

Tash croaked a response, but Josie could not tell what he meant to say. ‘Eat this,’ she said to Tash. ‘It will make you feel better. I know I said it was wrong to be immortal, but I would rather do wrong than let you die. Here.’ She held the apple in front of Tash’s beak, but he did not take it.

Tash croaked again, lay still, than raised his head and said three words clearly: ‘Not without you.’

‘Fine,’ said Josie, tears streaming down her face. ‘Fine.’ She took a large bite out of the apple – it was sweet without being cloying and perfectly crisp, with a faint flavour that reminded Josie not of vanilla as such, but of something in the vanilla-bush wind she had smelled as she had tumbled into this new world. She did not swallow the bite, but took it out of her mouth and gave it to Tash.

‘Open,’ she told him, kissing his beak, and he opened his beak a crack and let her put it in his mouth.

Josie took another bite of the apple and swallowed it. At once, she could feel a warmth from it seeping through her whole body, like the warmth of the almost-sherry Ormuz had given her. She pushed the momentary thought of her helplessness away. She was not that person any more. And where that had been an evil warmth, this was a good warmth. She knew it. She felt again that sensation of stepping out into a void, of turning her face toward a storm, that she had when she had agreed to marry Tash.

Josie took a third bite from the apple and fed it to Tash. ‘You will be alright now,’ she told him. ‘We will be alright.’ Tash did not speak, and did not make sounds of pain, and his eyes were closed, but when she put the apple in his mouth he ate it.

Josie kept on in this way alternating bites with Tash until the apple was gone, even the woody core; but she saved the seeds and wrapped them up in the bit of silk the apple had been in.

The warmth spread through Josie and settled in every part of her: to abide there forever, she felt certain. She felt calm and fulfilled, as if she had at last come out of a canyon onto a high plateau where the wind and sun could play freely on her face. It did not seem to matter at that moment at all that she had refused the quest she had been charged with, or that it had foretold by Aslan that her life with Tash would only last a little while, or that she had been raped the night before. She would feel horrible about all those things later, she knew; but at that moment she felt perfectly balanced and in control, satisfied as she had never been satisfied before. She wondered what would happen to her now, and to Tash now, now that they had eaten of the apples that were meant to make them live forever, but she wondered this in a perfectly calm way, like it they were all things that might have happened to characters in a story Gerry was reading to her while she lay safe and warm in bed.

After the last bite of the apple Tash had fallen quite asleep without saying anything, but he already felt less feverish to Josie’s touch, and she could not feel any fresh blood through the bandaged wounds.

‘Tash,’ she said, and kissed his head between his eyes.

She sat beside him, breathing slowly, savouring the feel of the air and the smell of the flowers and the sounds of the meadow around her.

‘I think it is safe to sleep now,’ said Josie to herself. She lay down beside Tash, very carefully so as not to jar any of his wounds, and a moment later was fast in a deep and dreamless sleep.


	24. The Beginning of the End

In Josie’s dream the wind had gotten hold of the loose edge of the tarpaulin, and it was flapping terribly. The rain lashed her face, and the wind swept her voice away, so the men whose job it was to fix the tarpaulin could not hear her instructions. It took a few moments after she awoke for her to realise that the sound of the tarpaulin had not stopped. It was coming from the shuttered window, and she prodded her husband.

‘Tash? Dear Tash?’

Tash mumbled something, and made a clumsy pacifying gesture with an arm at his wife as he slowly flickered into consciousness.

‘There’s something at the window, Tash,’ said Josie, and kissed the soft skin of his throat. ‘Dear Tash, can you see what it is?’ The sound that was not a tarpaulin flapping continued insistently.

Tash opened the shutters. A gust of wind and rain blew into the room – for that part of Josie’s dream had been quite accurate – and with it a very large bird. It was big enough to carry off a small child, and Tash turned instinctively to the corner where Gerald lay, curled up into a ball under his blankets.

‘Josie! It is an owl, I think.’ It was certainly the largest flying creature that had been in that chamber since the ifrits had been freed from their master, years before. Josie sat up in bed and listened to the bird as Tash closed the window and went to stand watch over the sleeping boy.

An owl can be very quiet when it chooses, so it sounded disconcertingly as if no one was there at all to Josie. ‘A good evening to you, friend owl,’ she said.

‘Good evening,’ said the owl, hopping closer to Josie. ‘The Lion’s peace be with you. I am sorry to disturb you at this hour, but might I ask- are you Miss Josephine Furness?’

The owl’s voice sounded as exhausted as might be expected from a creature that has been flying through a stormy night. It had that aura of authority that comes not from any natural superiority, but from being the bearer of some important office – a borrowed authority.

‘Yes, I was Miss Furness,’ said Josie, speaking as regally as you can manage when you are sitting up in bed with a blanket held up under your chin. ‘You can call me Josie – er, Lady Josie. This is my husband Tash, and my son Gerald.’

‘My name is Ofrak. It pleases me to meet you more than I can say, Lady Josie.’

Josie could not remember – was that the name of the owl the gazelles had said had brought them news, long before, when she had first come to this world? The unease she had felt at the first entry of the talking bird grew.

‘You are welcome here in Telmar as long as you wish,’ said Josie.

‘You are very generous,’ replied the owl.

‘Oh, I suppose I should get out of bed,’ said Josie, more to herself than anyone else. ’Can you hand me my nightdress, dear Tash? Thank you.’

‘To what do we owe the honour of your visit?’ asked Josie, getting out of bed and into her nightdress.

‘I am a herald of Prince Margis,’ said Ofrak.

At the sound of this name Josie twitched as if she had just heard a human footstep in a room she had just left and knew to be empty. This was a name she was quite sure she remembered. ‘Prince Margis?’

‘Yes. He has sent me ahead to scout out the Vale of Telmar. He will be here in a few days. I think five; certainly no more than a week.’

‘This is unexpected,’ said Josie, swallowing hard.

‘As you may know, Prince Margis had planned to journey here several years ago,’ said the owl, its voice growing more pompous in the way Josie had always halfway imagined an owl might talk. ‘But his Lordship had to postpone this venture when word came to him of his brother’s death, when he had barely reached the edge of the marches. Some time later rumour came to Balan that the sorceror had died, and that a new sorceress had taken over Telmar. It was said even that this new sorceress, begging your pardon, was none other than a girl that had been spoken of by certain talking animals some time before – which was yourself, Miss Josephine – Lady Josie. Last spring Prince Margis had things sufficiently in hand in Balan to set out again on his quest, which he has wisely done so with the aid of certain of the talking animals of Calormen, among which number I am proud to be one.’

While Ofrak had spoken Josie had moved over to where Tash stood and taken his hand. ‘What does the Prince want here?’ she asked.

‘To find the secrets of Telmar. To rescue you, if you are in need of rescue. To do you honour, if you are not. Should you,’ the owl paused, and continued in an apologetic tone, ‘be an enemy, to defeat you.’

‘That is very well,’ said Josie, not feeling at all reassured. ‘You can let Prince Margis know that I am no enemy to him.’

‘Of course, Lady Josie,’ said the owl.

‘Are there many of his party?’ asked Josie.

‘Beside myself, his Lordship travels with his advisor Jardil, who was his father’s cup companion, five men-at-arms of Balan, and a talking gazelle, Mirilitha.’

The name Mirilitha swam up out of depths of Josie’s memory. Yes, she remembered a Mirilitha – she had been one of the gazelles who had accompanied her on the journey that was supposed to deliver her to this Prince Margis.

‘Mirilitha? Then the gazelles-‘ Josie paused.

‘Brought news of your arrival to Prince Margis, yes. And of your abduction. His Lordship regrets very much that he did not come earlier to your rescue. It was thought at first that you were surely dead – for no stories before speak of anyone who has returned from the grasp of the sorceror’s ifrits. Then the stories came that the sorceror had been slain, and later, that a sorceress ruled in Telmar.’

Josie murmured a meaningless polite reply to the owl. It had been nearly three years of peace, living in the Vale of Telmar in the crumbling castle of the magician Yustus; three years that had not always been easy, years that had sometimes felt to Josie more like being in a prison than being mistress of her own domain, but years that had been uncomplicated by any interruptions from outside the valley. There had been no more earthquakes, no more summons to embark on quests. In those three years Josie had felt smothered sometimes by Tash’s devotion, which had not faded a whit since the night they promised themselves to each other. It did not feel right to have a husband who was always so unquestioningly obedient. And the boy – well, she loved him now, but he had been selfish and demanding from the beginning, as children are when they are very young, and she was too young to be properly patient with him, and it was a rare day even now that she did not remember how cruelly he had been foisted on her, a punishment or a twisted consolation prize for refusing to carry out Aslan’s quest.

Those years were over now, for better or for worse.

There was a stirring from Gerald’s bed, and then an excited voice made it evident that two bright little eyes were staring in an intrigued way at the owl.

‘What is it, Daddy?’ asked the boy.

‘It’s an owl,’ said Tash. ‘A talking owl.’ He picked up the boy and held him up where he could see the bird better.

‘Why?’ asked Gerald.

‘It’s a visitor,’ said Tash. ‘We are going to have visitors.’ And he squeezed his wife’s hand reassuringly.

‘I remember Mirilitha,’ said Josie to Ofrak. ‘She is a fine gazelle.’

‘What’s a gazelle?’ asked Gerald.

‘They are like deer,’ said Tash in a small voice to Gerald. ‘I have never seen one either.’

‘As I said, you are welcome here, Ofrak,’ said Josie. ‘There are rats enough in the castle, God knows – I expect you eat rats? But is there anything else you require?’

‘Rats are fine, Lady Josie,’ said the owl. ‘All I need otherwise is a dry place to rest, thank you very much.’

‘It eats rats?’ said Gerald, his voice tinged with awe.

‘It seems so,’ said Tash. ‘We should not, though.’

‘What do they taste like?’ Gerald asked the visitor.

Josie ignored this exchange and spoke with the owl. ‘When you are rested enough, you may let Prince Margis know that he and his company are also very welcome here. Now, I will show you to a place you can rest. I wonder what hour it is?’

‘My apologies,’ said Ofrak. ‘There are still three hours until dawn.’

‘It is not unknown for us to wake at this hour,’ said Josie. For the first time, she showed that she was aware that Gerald was awake, running her fingers through his hair and smiling ever so slightly.

***

The last of the clouds that had brought the night’s rain were dissipating in ragged shreds, and the wind shook the leafless branches of the poplars, as Prince Margis and his band followed the path along the little river that Ofrak had said led to the Vale of Telmar. They rode in the steady way of men who have ridden a very long way already and expect to ride a great deal further still, and have no hope of a change of horses in the foreseeable future.

‘There must be some ensorcellment lying about the evil place yet,’ said Prince Margis, with an earnestness creasing the youthful brow of a man used to blithely confronting his enemies head on. ‘Why else would she call the creature her husband?’

‘From the tale the thief told it is the very beast that rescued her from their clutches,’ said his advisor, whose brow was permanently creased from long habit. ‘The gratitude of women is less swayed by incidentals than the corresponding emotion of men, and a deformity that would seem appalling to us, in a woman, would seem but a trifle to a woman, in a man.’

‘True,’ mused Prince Margis. ‘You only have to look at Captain Jorjis and his wives. But still, her husband?’

‘With respect, my Prince,’ said Jardil. ‘If she truly is from another world, who knows what may be expected or excused in a woman of power?’

‘Surely not, Jardil,’ said the Prince. ‘You must not entertain such thoughts. It must be some misunderstanding of speech.’

‘It may be,’ said Jardil.

‘But the child. How could she come by the child?’ mused Prince Margis, his brow still uncharacteristically troubled.

‘The way such things happen is well established,’ said Jardil drily.

‘But how could- who could- never mind.’ For they had reached a narrow stony place, and it was needful to ride in single file.

Jardil did not approve of speaking of such things in front of the common soldiers. The news the owl had brought had been alarming, true, but one could not expect a woman who had come from another world to be in any way ordinary. You could not demand a woman obey ordinary rules, when she had bested a sorceror who had been feared for hundreds of years. The best that one could hope for was that she was fundamentally honourable, and receptive to the proposal the Prince Margis brought. After all, one could not heave a stone in Balan without striking a demure virgin of good family: but there was only one Lady Josie of Telmar. If only the Prince would think more strategically, and less romantically, thought Jardil. The advisor would have sighed, if he was not so used to divorcing his interior life from his outward actions.

Prince Margis proceeded first up the narrow path, with the boldness proper to Princes of Calormen. His dog, a black bitch he had befriended in the Marches some years before, scampered up alongside him. Jardil followed, with Ofrak perched imperturbably asleep atop his saddlebags, and behind him the slim gazelle Mirilitha. The five men at arms brought up the rear, loyal men of Calormen who had served the household of the King from their earliest youth, hopeful that they were reaching a comfortable stopping place but alert to any mischance.

It had been a long journey with very little comfort in it, and a great deal of miserable weather, but Prince Margis had kept his beard neatly trimmed and his hair oiled, and expected his company to do the same. Prince Margis himself, while a very fit and well-proportioned man, was no more handsome than the ordinary run of his people (the average man of Calormen of that time was much fitter than an average Englishman of our time, for they had not yet acquired slaves or any of the other things that incline a people to lethargy). Most of Prince Margis’s loyal manservants would have been judged more handsome than he, if they were dressed in the same finery. The prince had a helpful harmless sort of face – a face that would have suited a waiter rather than a prince; and you would have never taken him for a headwaiter. When he was called upon to act as a prince he wore quite a different face over this first face, like a mask, but it did not fit him naturally.

Jardil had been handsome in his youth, but was one of those men who do not age into what is called distinguished, but become creased and gaunt through worry. He did not lament it. Life was complicated enough without the distractions of youth.

‘Lord Jardil?’

‘Mirilitha?’ Jardil replied coolly to the gazelle, who had come up to walk beside his horse as the path broadened again.

‘If you will forgive me speaking to you as if I too were a Son of Frank, what do you think of Ofrak’s news?’ The animal cast her head about in her nervous gazelle fashion.

‘I am not sure I follow you, Mirilitha.’ Jardil looked straight ahead. Overhead cypress trees, gnarled and ancient, blocked out the sun. He did not like this place.

‘Lady Josie,’ the gazelle paused. ‘You have lived a long time, Lord Jardil, and had many dealings with many Sons of Frank and Daughters of Helen in that time. Lady Josie was friendly when I met her, long before, but do you think she will still be friendly? Do you think she will agree to return with the Prince?’

Jardil did not wholly approve that Mirilitha and Ofrak had been brought along on this journey. He saw the usefulness of having them, and went along with Prince Margis’ designs without complaint, as he also saw the usefulness in many other things of which he did not wholly approve, and went along with them. He was a practical man. He was also a political man, and he hid his disapproval well, indeed so well that both the talking beasts were more likely to confide in him than in any of the others. It was still necessary for them to maintain a proper deference towards men, of course.

‘Nothing is ever certain,’ said Jardil. ‘But from Ofrak’s report, the Lady Josie has her wits about her, and I think she will see the wisdom in the Prince’s proposal.’

‘I did not mean any disrespect to the Lady Josie,’ said Mirilitha humbly.

‘I am sure you did not, Mirilitha,’ replied Jardil. ‘But there is no profit in asking me these questions. All will be made clear soon enough.’

‘Yes, Lord Jardil,’ said Mirilitha.

The prince’s company walked forward silently through the forest, the shadows growing thicker as the sun descended behind the mountains.


	25. A Long-Expected Meeting

Josie and Tash had spent a busy few days putting the castle into order to receive visitors. The hall where Blackbriar had once slept was swept out, bedding was arranged there, and wood made ready for the fireplace. Another hall that had seemed like it might once have been a banqueting hall, where the roof only leaked in the strongest rains, was readied with heavy chairs of polished wood and tapestries to be a fit place for holding conference in. Food and drink as suitable for entertaining a prince as could be managed was collected. Many of the nicer things that the ifrits had collected for Yustus were long gone; Turkish delight, for instance, was only a fond memory, and it was a long time since Josie had eaten yogurt or fresh apricots. But they had sugared fruits and pickled vegetables in plenty, a great quantity of roast venison, and enough flour remained for Josie to bake years’ worth of bread. Throughout the preparations for the visit Gerald contrived to be wherever he would be most in the way. He found the flurry of activity most exciting.

‘Daddy, is the owl coming back?’ he asked Tash. ‘Will it bring the gazelle?’

‘That is what he said, little one,’ Tash replied. ‘The owl will be back, and the gazelle too, and some men.’

‘Like you?’ asked Gerald.

‘More like you, but grown up,’ explained Tash. He lifted Gerald onto his shoulder. ‘Try imagining you are about this high, that is what they will be like.’

‘Ooh,’ said Gerald, and laughed.

Josie made sure that she had her finest silks and jewels picked out to wear while the Prince was visiting, and selected things for Tash and Gerald to wear as well.

‘You will have to wear something,’ she told Tash. ‘Even if it is really only a curtain pinned up, we can make it seem splendid. It would be too shameful if you were naked.’

‘As you wish,’ said Tash. ‘I will ornament myself with jewels too. And Gerald: there is that golden ring thing that will look nice on his head.’

‘So long as he does not take it off and lose it somewhere,’ said Josie. But then she laughed, a little nervously. ‘What an old woman I am becoming,’ she said. ‘As if it mattered. There is more jewellery here than we could ever wear.’

Tash said nothing. Of course, being immortal, in principle they would have plenty of time to wear all the jewellery, even if every room of the castle was crammed full of the stuff. But their days together were destined to be short – the Books of Tash had said so, and Aslan had confirmed it. He did not like to think of how short they might be.

During those days Tash played cheerfully with the boy, and was gentle with his wife, and worked hard getting the castle in order without complaint; but inside he felt every moment as if he was teetering on the edge of a black well of fear. All that he had here had been under threat since he had read the Books of Tash, like a village on the edge of a steep mountain that is sure one day to give way in a landslide. And now the earth was trembling, and soon a great wave of stone and earth would sweep the village away.

‘I will not give them up,’ he told himself. ‘I will not.’

***

The Mistress of Telmar and her retinue – that is, Tash and Gerald – met with Prince Margis and his company at the base of the hill, where the hidden path to the castle began. Tash and Gerald had watched eagerly at the window for the visitors’ approach, so they were in position in plenty of time.

‘Are those horses?’ asked Gerald.

‘I think so,’ answered Tash.

Certainly Gerald had never seen so many people and beasts coming purposefully up to him, and found it quite marvellous and exciting until they were a little too close, when his face crumbled into unhappiness and he hid against Tash’s chest.

‘There is a dog with them,’ Tash said to Josie in a low rumbling voice. ‘I think it might be Blackbriar.’

‘Indeed,’ said Josie, her voice shaking a little.

The riders stopped a good ten paces short of Josie and dismounted. ‘The peace of the Lion be with you, Lady Josie,’ said the first of them, a young man who could only have been Prince Margis. Tash noticed that the Prince and the other men who were with him kept their eyes politely fixed on Josie, but could not help watching him out of the corner of their eyes. They do not know what I am, thought Tash. And they are scared of me. Thinking this made him feel bolder and more cheerful. The men were not dressed all that differently from the brigands he had fought a few years before, though they were better groomed, and all of them except Prince Margis seemed to be concentrating mainly on controlling their horses. Tash knew the horses were frightened of him, too, and the men being frightened of him made the horses more frightened.

‘Greetings to you, Prince Margis,’ said Josie, sounding to Tash very grand and in control of everything. ‘Allow me to introduce my husband, Tash, and my son, Gerald.’

‘It is an honour, Lady Josie,’ said the Prince, inclining his head slightly in a royal bow. Josie responded in the same way. ‘These are my companions: my advisor, Arkalan Jardil; my men-at-arms, Jemin, Hurras, Karifar, and Eyit; Ofrak who is known to you, and Mirilitha.’ As each of the men or beasts were named, they made a sign of obeisance to the Mistress of Telmar.

It was all uncomfortably formal, but the dog chose that moment to come forward and nose about Josie’s feet. She crouched down to pat it. ‘Blackbriar! Is that you?’ The dog licked her hand.

Gerald had begun to peek out again, very cautiously. ‘Doggie,’ he observed.

‘I call her Onyx,’ said Prince Margis.

‘I am quite sure that she is the dog we knew as Blackbriar, though,’ said Josie. ‘Yes, Gerald, it is definitely a doggie. One I did not think I would meet here again.’ She straightened and brushed her hands on her skirts.

Tash watched the men. They did not know what to make of Josie, and they did not know what to make of him. In turn, they reminded him uncomfortably of the brigands. They are not at all the same, he told himself. They look the same, that is all. Gerald must have picked up Tash’s unease, since he began to wriggle and complain.

‘You are welcome in Castle Telmar, Prince Margis,’ said Josie. ‘You and yours, for as long as you wish. Please come in and we will show you to your rooms.’

‘You are a generous hostess, Lady Josie,’ replied Prince Margis. ‘I am most grateful.’

‘We do not have many servants – any servants, really – so all we have is simple, but I hope you will find it sufficient,’ said Josie.

‘We have been sleeping out of doors for months,’ said Prince Margis cheerfully. ‘Four walls and a roof will be luxury enough.’

Josie led the way on into the castle. Tash wanted to walk beside her, but he did not want to get too close to the horses and scare them, so he let the men and their horses go by with plenty of room and brought up the rear with Mirilitha.

‘This lady is a gazelle,’ said Tash to Gerald. ‘If you are quiet and good, maybe she will let you pat her.’

‘Yes, that’s right,’ said Mirilitha. The gazelle did not seem anywhere near as afraid of Tash as the men were. Maybe to her he was not all that different from a human, Tash thought.

‘I am Gerald,’ said Gerald to the gazelle. He held out a hand in her direction, and Tash held him so that he could run his hand over Mirilitha’s fur.

‘Gerald looks very like the Lady Josie,’ said Mirilitha.

‘I look like me,’ said Gerald defensively.

‘Yes, you do, little one,’ admitted the gazelle. ‘No one could mistake you for anyone else.’

‘He is curious about gazelles,’ said Tash. ‘So am I. You are smaller than I thought you would be.’

‘That is fair, Lord Tash,’ said Mirilitha. ‘You are larger than I thought.’

They passed through the narrow doorway that had been closed in the time of the evil magician, and started up the broad winding stairway to the castle proper.

‘No one has called me Lord Tash before,’ said Tash, thinking how very odd it sounded.

‘Since you are the consort of Lady Josie, I thought it would be your proper title,’ said Mirilitha. ‘I am sorry if I have it wrong. I am still quite new at dealing with the Sons of Frank and Daughters of Helen, and here-‘ she looked for a moment like she was going to bolt off in a nervous gazelle manner. ‘Here it is different again.’

‘I do not mind at all being called Lord Tash,’ said Tash.

‘Am I Lord Gerald?’ asked Gerald.

‘I think you are the young Master,’ said Mirilitha. ‘Young Master Gerald.’

‘I like Lord Gerald better,’ said Gerald.

***

The travellers were shown to their rooms, and Prince Margis pronounced himself amazed by the splendours of the castle. ‘To think that it was made hundreds of years ago,’ he said. ‘Balan was scarcely a huddle of mud huts at that time.’

After the horses were seen to and the men tidied up it was time for lunch, so there was a feast of cold roast venison and pickled vegetables in the banqueting hall. As Josie was not fond of wine herself, she had plenty to share with the travellers, and she made sure that their cups were full.

The food may not have been splendid, but they ate off golden plates the Telmarines had left. The Telmarines had used spoons, but no forks, so Josie had gotten in the habit of eating with her fingers and figured she could do it quite tidily. She could not see what her human visitors were doing, but if her manners were terrible, they had the good sense not to complain.

There was an unspoken agreement not to speak of anything of great importance just yet. Prince Margis conversed with the natural politeness of nobility; Josie replied with what felt to her like ungainly awkwardness; and the others- Margis’ advisor Jardil, the men-at-arms, and still more the two talking beasts – kept the polite silence of underlings. Josie found this most unnerving. She was not at all used to being the centre of attention at a formal meal.

Eventually they had emptied their plates and refilled their cups. ‘With your pardon, Lady Josie,’ said Prince Margis. ‘There is one thing I should not delay any longer. I know we have much to discuss, and it would be best to put off discussing it until the morrow, but there is this one thing.’

‘Of course, Prince Margis,’ said Josie. Gerald had fallen asleep during lunch, and was comfortably tucked away on a pile of blankets in the corner.

‘I have something that I believe is yours,’ said Margis, removing something from a pouch.

‘What is it?’ asked Josie.

‘The ruby key,’ Tash replied in his profoundly unmusical voice, before Prince Margis could say anything. ‘They key to the secrets of Telmar.’

‘Yes, Lady Josie. I do not know whether it is in truth the key to the secrets of Telmar, but I was told it belonged to you.’

Josie realised she was gritting her teeth, and forced her face to relax into a smile with an effort. ‘Thank you, Prince Margis.’

He leant across the table to put the key in front of her, and she lifted her hands to take it from him. As their hands touched she felt all the hairs on her arm stand up on end. It was if he had passed her something invisible and dangerous and powerful, along with the key.

‘How did you come by this key?’ she asked, keeping her voice carefully controlled.

‘A thief was captured, stealing from goatherds at the edge of the great desert. He had this key on him. He was brought to Balan for punishment, and when he was questioned, he admitted that he been part of band that had taken it from a woman far to the northwest – near Telmar, near here. It was a pale young woman, he said, one who had no business being in such a wild country. He said then that their band had been set upon by a monster – begging your pardon, er, Lord Tash – that had taken the girl, and slain a dozen of the band, and that he had been one of the few who escaped with his life.’

‘That makes sense,’ said Josie slowly. ‘Thank you for bringing it back.’

‘It was no more than six,’ said Tash modestly. ‘I am quite sure.’

Josie turned the ruby key over and over in her fingers, reacquainting herself with it. ‘I should put it on a chain, instead of just a bit of ribbon,’ she said, more to herself than anyone else. She set the key back down on the table in front of her. ‘Tash?’ she reached out a hand to take one of his, feeling more ill at ease than before.

‘Well, I am happy to put off any discussion of weighty matters until the morrow,’ said Prince Margis cheerily. ‘But I could not rest with that burning in my pouch, knowing it to be yours.’

‘Thank you again,’ said Josie. She squeezed Tash’s hand.

‘May I fill your cup, Lady Josie?’ asked the Prince.

Josie flinched. ‘No, thank you.’ The return of the key had brought the circumstances in which it was taken from her vividly back to mind. She clutched on to Tash as though his hand was all that kept her from falling into an abyss.

‘As you wish, Lady Josie,’ replied the Prince.

‘I think the Lady Josie may be tired, my Prince,’ said Jardil smoothly. ‘I find I am also weary after our long journey. And there are some few tasks we must still accomplish this afternoon.’

‘Er -of course,’ said Prince Margis. ‘Perhaps you will be so kind as to excuse us, Lady Josie?’

‘Yes, certainly,’ said Josie. ‘Please make yourselves at home in the castle. You are quite right. I find I am quite tired after all the excitement.’ She picked up the key and stood. ‘Thank you.’

***

That evening Margis and Jardil walked together in the garden where Tash had once been a statue. Only the statue of the queen remained now, tumbled and broken into pieces on the ground, and the lawn that the ifrits had kept in good repair was a wilderness of weeds with a few well-worn trails running through it. Beyond the edge where the garden fell precipitously away, the sun was setting in a blaze of colour – for there were great fires or dust storms far away, and since midday the horizon had been hidden in haze.

‘Jardil, she is more beguiling than ever I imagined,’ said Prince Margis with earnest enthusiasm. ‘There is something about her. When our hands touched, it was as if I touched fire. Oh, she is strange, Jardil, very strange and perilous, but I feel I am half in love with her already.’

Jardil walked on for a moment before answering. He plucked a dead twig from the honeysuckle vine and rolled it between his fingers. ‘But there is Tash, the creature she calls her husband.’

‘In truth, I never dreamed to see such a thing,’ said Margis, ‘I still cannot believe it. She does not seem ensorcelled. It truly seems as if she commands the beast. And she- she-‘ Margis shook his head in honest bewilderment. ‘Jardil, can it really but that she- that they-‘

‘Would it make any difference to your designs, my Prince?’ asked Jardil. ‘We know she is not a virgin. She has a son.’

Margis regarded the sunset. It looked as if the edge of the world had caught fire. ‘No,’ he said, slowly and carefully. ‘No, I suppose it would not. As I said, I am already half in love with her. No, two-thirds.’

‘Well then, you must go on as you had planned,’ said Jardil.

‘Yes,’ said Margis. There was another long moment before he spoke again to his advisor.

‘Jardil, do you think she cannot be parted from him?’

‘I know the ways of a man with a woman, my Prince, and I know you well, and I judge there will be no great difficulty in parting her from the creature; but parting the creature from her, that will be another matter.’

‘Ah,’ said Margis, gazing at the sunset.

***

At the same time Tash and Josie were talking in the chambers where the evil magician had once lived. The curtains were drawn and no light was lit, but Tash was well used to the gloom.

‘I did not expect it,’ said Josie. ‘I suppose it is a sign. A sign that we have to open up the secret chamber and do something with the things there. And Blackbriar is here. It has to be a sign. Do you think it is a sign, Tash? A second chance, to set things right with the animals here and finish what Aslan wanted?’

‘He wanted you to go away,’ said Tash, smoothing the hair back from Josie’s forehead.

‘Maybe he has changed his mind. Since we made it clear we weren’t going, he made sure that these men came here – with the key, and with the dog.’ She sounded more frightened than she had allowed herself to sound in the presence of the Calormenes.

‘I don’t know,’ said Tash.

‘Maybe once we do what we are supposed to do, they will go again, and-‘ Josie fell silent.

‘And then it could stay like this,’ said Tash. ‘It would be good. I will hope.’ But it was hard to hope, since he had read the Books of Tash, and felt his destiny rumbling down upon him. ‘It could be you are right, and Aslan has changed his mind, and we are not doomed after all.’

‘Can you hear Gerald?’ asked Josie suddenly.

‘I don’t think so,’ said Tash.

‘I think I do,’ said Josie. ‘I will go get him.’ She rose hastily from their bed, threw a wrap around her shoulders, and went into the next room where the boy lay sleeping.


	26. A Realm Reborn

In the morning they gathered again in the grand hall of the half-ruinous castle of Telmar.

‘Ofrak has told us your reason for coming here, Prince Margis,’ said Josie, standing up straight at one end of the long table. ‘But I think there is another one.’

Margis glanced at Jardil, who kept his attention politely focussed on the bejewelled Mistress of Telmar. Ofrak perched magisterially at the Prince’s left, apparently pleased that his name had been mentioned.

Josie went on. ‘You know that Aslan came here long ago because the men of this place were wicked, and turned them into dumb beasts. There is a place here that was set aside then – by the Lion – for restoring them when the time was right. Restoring their descendants, that is. I think that is why you have come, even if you did not know it, and why Blackbriar is here.’ Josie felt she was not explaining things very well.

Prince Margis nodded respectfully. ‘I have long dreamed of coming to this place to do some great deed, not knowing for certain what it was I might be called upon to do. So what you say is not unwelcome to me.’

‘I do not know exactly what you are supposed to do, but I know that you and I both have a part somehow in restoring the men of Telmar, using the things in the place Aslan set aside,’ Josie continued. ‘Blackbriar is one of them. That is why she went off to seek the lands of men.’

‘I always thought she was an exceptional creature,’ said Margis cheerily. ‘Have I not always said there was no other like her, Jardil? Please, Lady Josie, tell us the tale of this place set aside by Aslan.’

‘I can tell you the tale –but I do not know the beginning. I was given the key to the place by one of the ifrits, when they left. That is the key you returned to me.’ Josie paused then for a long moment.

‘Maybe we should just show them,’ said Tash. Even as he said this, Tash regretted saying it. He did not want the strangers in the secret places of the castle.

‘Indeed, if you wish, Lady Josie,’ said Prince Margis. ‘Showing is twelve score times telling, as we say in our country.’

‘Yes,’ said Josie. ‘Yes, let us go there. I will show you the place and tell you what we know of it, and then I will tell you how we defeated the sorceror.’ She let Tash take her hand, and they left the hall in as grand a manner as they could manage, followed by Prince Margis and his advisors.

***

In the hidden chamber of the castle Prince Margis eagerly went forth onto the dais, marvelling at the mysteries left behind by the immortal Lion who was said to be son of the Emperor Beyond the Sea. ‘Did you ever imagine you would see such wondrous magic?’ he asked Jardil, peering with keen interest at the viands that had been miraculously preserved as fresh as the hour they were made for hundreds of years.

‘Never, my Lord,’ Jardil replied.

While Jardil followed Margis no more than a pace or two distant, Ofrak hung back, reluctant to perch on anything that might have been touched by Aslan. Mirilitha hung yet further back, at the bottom of the stair, and from her manner would have fled back to the surface if she had not found it so difficult to traverse them. The black bitch – Blackbriar, or Onyx as Prince Margis called her- had stayed well away from the hidden chamber.

Tash and Josie stood side by side at the edge of the dais where the box of apples was. While the men’s lanterns cast long wavering shadows around the room, Tash held his dimmer lamp higher and stiller, providing most of the useful light in the chamber. Gerald clung to Tash, wide-eyed; he had not been in the chamber before, and was troubled by a thought that he could not put into words, that the whole of the ground underneath his feet might be riddled with rooms full of mysterious things, both wonderful and terrible.

‘It truly is a marvel, my Prince,’ said Jardil. There was something like awe in the voice of the cynical old courtier. ‘To my eye, this armour looks like it would fit you better than any suit of mail made by your father’s smiths. And this other, it is as though it were crafted expressly for the Lady Josie.’

‘It is splendid,’ said Margis. ‘And more than splendid. It is humbling to think that such a destiny has been set before us.’ He lifted one of the goblets from the table and turned it from side to side in the light, then set it down again. ‘But I wonder what precisely it is we are to do. Do you know anything of the will of Aslan in this matter, Lady Josie?’

‘Not exactly,’ said Josie. ‘We tried before, feeding some of the food to Blackbriar to see if it would make her into a talking animal. Instead it turned her into a woman, but only for a little while, and then she turned back.’

Prince Margis could not help making an exclamation of amazement. ‘By the Lion’s wounds!’

Josie held tightly on to Tash. ‘She turned back; so there is more to it than that. Perhaps we are meant to bring the beasts whose ancestors were the men of Telmar here; or bring the whole feast out to them. I don’t know. But I think there must be something more than that – with the armour.’

‘Yes, such mail is hardly necessary to preside over a feast, unless it is unruly indeed,’ said Margis. ‘But you would agree, Lady Josie, that a good place to start would be to seek out these beasts, and speak with them?’

‘They don’t speak,’ Tash pointed out helpfully.

‘Doggie,’ said Gerald.

‘Of course, Lord Tash,’ said the Prince. ‘Speak to them, rather. For I understand from what the Lady Josie has said that they can understand speech? And that she can understand to a degree what they might wish to make known?’

‘Blackbriar sought us out,’ said Josie. ‘And we worked out together a way for her to answer my questions. I think the others will understand us; but I do not know if they will make any effort to answer.’

‘We will have to be most encouraging, then, Lady Josie,’ said the Prince. ‘I expect- Blackbriar – can act as our intermediary.’

‘I think so,’ said Josie.

‘Are they all dogs?’ asked Margis. ‘The tales I have heard tell that the men of Telmar were turned into dumb beasts, but they do not say what kind.’

‘There were dogs, and pigs,’ said Josie. ‘I don’t know much about the pigs, and whether the dogs can understand them or not. But there are many of them in the valley.’

‘You should not look so downcast, my Lady Josie,’ said the Prince. ‘We will do this thing that Aslan has charged us with. It is destiny.’

‘She does not look downcast,’ said Tash, stroking Josie’s face.

‘Piggie,’ said Gerald, and followed his father’s lead with his own sticky hand.

‘A trick of the light, it must have been,’ said Prince Margis, with a little bow. ‘My apologies for such forwardness, Lady Josie.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Josie, her fingers going unbidden to the ruby key that hung on a golden chain around her neck.

‘What is kept there?’ asked the Prince, taking a step towards the Mistress of Telmar and indicating the box of magic apples with a nod of his head.

‘More foodstuffs, preserved by the magic of this place,’ said Josie. ‘But left here by the sorceror, not the Lion – not Aslan. So no part of the things Aslan left behind.’

‘It is marvellous, is it not?’ said Margis. He gazed intently at Josie’s face in a way that Tash did not like. ‘The power of the sorceror was great, but even he did not dare to ruin any of these things that were touched by the power of the Lion. We are fortunate that there is so great a power working for good in the world.’

‘There is strong magic in here,’ said Josie. ‘I think it would have been hard for the sorceror to come close to it.’

‘If Aslan is so powerful, why did he not destroy the sorceror?’ asked Tash.

‘Who can say, Lord Tash?’ said Prince Margis, spreading his arms wide and smiling a rueful smile. ‘It is not as if he were a tame lion. But since the world began, there has been evil unpunished, and virtue unrewarded.’

‘It was we who destroyed the sorceror,’ said Tash. ‘The Lady Josie, and I, and the ifrits.’

‘I would most like to hear your tale, Lord Tash, if you wish to tell it,’ replied Margis courteously. ‘I am sure the accounts of the sorceror’s end that have come as far as Balan are but garbled traveller’s tales.’

‘Mummy?’ said Gerald, tangling his sticky hand in Lady Josie’s hair.

‘I’m alright, Gerry,’ said Josie, in a small sniffly voice. ‘Ow.’

‘By your leave, Lady Josie, do you think we might remove the suits of armour from this room?’ asked Jardil. ‘They seem to be made to fit your Ladyship and Prince Margis as you are at this very moment, and it may be intended that you are to wear them when you go out to meet with the beasts.’

‘As you wish,’ said Josie. ‘I think – I think this must be the time.’

How very young she still is, thought Jardil. And how uncertain she sounds. She does not like this treasure chamber, nor this talk of the Lion. She is not of this world, and doubtless has hidden powers. The Prince is foolish to play at being in love with her. But still, she is only a girl. There was no way they could leave her here, with the monster: it would not be right. And her boy deserved to grow up among men.

‘There seems no reason to delay,’ agreed Margis brightly.

‘Then you must go and speak with Blackbriar,’ said Tash. ‘Right? Right?’ The voice of the creature was harsh, Jardil thought, like the voice of an old hawker in the market.

‘Yes,’ said Josie. ‘We will all go and speak with Blackbriar.’

‘Of course, if the Lady Josie desires it,’ said Prince Margis, with a bow, and started for the stairs. Mirilitha went before him, as quickly as she could manage, and Ofrak followed a little way behind him.

Jardil brought up the rear, staying behind a moment longer to detach some pieces of the suit of mail that seemed to be made to fit Prince Margis. He saw how Josie nudged Tash with her elbow, and inclined her head, and how the creature understood this unspoken command. While two of Tash’s arms continued to hold Josie’s son, the other two picked up the wooden box and carried it from the treasure chamber. Like so many things he had observed over his life, Jardil made a note to himself to be sure to remember this box which Josie had made little of, then taken care to remove from the chamber when the Prince’s attention was elsewhere.

When they emerged from the treasure chamber, they could not find Blackbriar. She was not where they had left her sunning herself in a courtyard. Josie called to her, and Prince Margis called to her, and she did not come. The men searched all the parts of the castle where she had been, and Tash strode out by himself to search the more distant, ruinous parts of the castle. Ofrak flew wide circles high above the stronghold of Telmar and could see nothing.

‘Though it is too bright for my eyes,’ he admitted in a crestfallen way, reporting back to Lady Josie and Prince Margis on the terrace outside the grand hall. ‘I may well have missed her.’

‘The doggie has gone away,’ said Gerald, who was sitting playing with some jewels for marbles.

‘The doggie will come back,’ assured Josie, with a confidence she did not feel.

‘Yes,’ agreed Gerald, with absolute certainty. ‘The doggie will come back.’

‘You sound very sure, my little man,’ said Margis, crouching down on his haunches and ruffling the boy’s hair. ‘I hope you are right.’

‘I am Lord Gerald,’ said Gerald defensively. ‘I am right.’

‘Very well, my Lord Gerald,’ said Prince Margis, with a laugh that would have made Gerald furious if he had been a very little bit older. ‘Perhaps, my Lady Josie, the bitch knows better than we what we are to do at this juncture. It does not seem as if any enemy stole in here and led her away; so if she is walking into peril it is of her own will. I will hope that she is as sensible as we have found her to be until now, and will return safely soon.’

‘You are probably right,’ said Josie. ‘Gerry, come here.’ She gathered her son, who did not insist on being called ‘Lord Gerald’ by his mother, up into her arms.

‘With your leave, Lady Josie, and my Lord Margis’ said Jardil. ‘You had said, Lady Josie, you would relate the tale of how you and Lord Tash vanquished the sorceror, and came into possession of Telmar and its secrets. While we wait for Blackbriar to return, perhaps we might sit by the fire and listen to your tale?’

‘That is probably wise,’ said Josie. ‘Come, Gerry, we will tell the men our story.’

‘Yes,’ said Gerald, very solemnly.

The men, as well as Ofrak the owl and Mirilitha the gazelle, settled down to listen to Josie’s tale of how they had vanquished the sorceror, and she began to tell it. The one big thing she did not mention at all in her story was the apples that gave strength and youth, and let you live forever if you had come from another world. This did leave a curiously-shaped gap in her story, but it seemed enough that an evil sorceror would want to move into a body as young and fair as hers, once her eyes were restored.

‘It is a dreadful thing, that he should have sought to treat you so,’ Prince Margis had said vehemently.

‘Most assuredly,’ Jardil had agreed. ‘But meaning no offence, Lady Josie, it is passing strange that he should seek to take your body for his own, when so many strong men could have easily been taken by his servants.’

‘I do not know,’ Josie had said unconvincingly.

‘If I may venture, sir,’ said Ofrak. ‘It may be that the whiteness of Lady Josie, and the fact that she was brought here from another world, put the sorceror in mind of the White Queen. You see,’ he bobbed his own white head in a polite bow to Josie, ‘She also came here, so the tales say, from another world. She was the most powerful magician that the world had seen. I have seen her likeness carved in many places here, and I have heard tales that she once tarried in Telmar, and was held in honour by the evil men who dwelled here.’

‘It may be,’ said Jardil.

‘What happened to her?’ asked Josie.

‘No one knows,’ replied Ofrak. ‘They say she could not die. At least, that is the story. She is said to have lived for hundreds of years.’

‘If this is true,’ said Prince Margis. ‘Which, Lady Josie, I doubt – I have talked over these matters with Ofrak before, and also with old men who knew stories of Telmar in Balan, before we left – if this is true, it does not mean that she could not be killed by an accident, or an enemy. I think this is why she has not been heard of for a very long time.’

‘Let us hope this has happened,’ said Jardil.

‘Yes,’ said Ofrak. ‘Of course.’

***

Tash, alone among the company, had no desire for Blackbriar to return. He wished the dog and the men and the owl and the gazelle would finish their business in Telmar as quickly as possible and go away, and waiting for this to happen made him impatient and ill-tempered. He could not remember exactly what he had read in the Books of Tash – a kind of darkness had settled on his memories of what he had read of his future life, and he could only remember the things he had read after he had lived them, never before. He did not remember exactly, but he felt that he was coming to a place in the story where he would do heroic things that others would take the credit for, or else do horrible things that he would regret forever. This feeling had come upon him like the itch of dry winter skin when Ofrak had first fluttered into his bedchamber, and had only become worse since then. Dim shapeless masses of memory waited a little way ahead of him, memories of things he had read that would soon become real, and he felt that there was nothing he could do to avoid them.

Tash had gone off alone to look for Blackbriar amid the shadowed corners of the ruins where he had once found the way to the Books of Tash, and came back to the great hall where the fire had been built high just in time to hear Prince Margis call Gerald ‘my little man’ again.

Gerald was sitting on Josie’s lap where she sat, close by the Calormenes in a pool of turbulent golden light by the fire. He had just interjected something into the story Josie was telling, and Margis had leant forward to tousle his hair, putting his head closer to Josie’s than Tash liked.

‘Surely you were not yet there, my little man,’ said the human Prince.

‘He is not your little man,’ growled Tash. ‘He is mine.’

One of the Calormene men-at-arms- the round-faced one, Hurras – laughed shortly at this, and Jardil turned an angry glare on him; but Tash did not notice, for his fury was centred on Prince Margis. Without willing it, he lifted his arms high and clenched and unclenched his taloned hands menacingly, and Margis’ men at arms stepped forward to defend their master.

‘It is only a figure of speech,’ said Josie. ‘Of course he is yours. Tash, don’t be silly.’

‘I meant no offence, Lord Tash,’ said Margis, looking up at Tash with calm dark eyes. ‘I crave your pardon.’

Tash lowered his arms slowly. ‘I suppose I am sorry,’ he said. Jardil made a cutting gesture, and the men-at-arms stepped back.

‘Mummy is telling the story of how you bit off the sorceror’s hand,’ said Gerald helpfully.

Tash bowed his head to the boy.

‘Lady Josie was telling how she would certainly have lived a short and cruel life as slave to the sorceror, if you had not been there,’ added Prince Margis.

‘It is all fine, dear Tash,’ said Josie. ‘Will you sit awhile with us, while I tell the rest of it?’ she asked.

‘Not now,’ said Tash. ‘May I take Gerald?’

‘Of course, dear Tash,’ said Josie, setting her hands so as to lift her son up to Tash.

‘I want to hear the rest of the story,’ said Gerald.

‘When the Lady Josie has finished, dear Tash,’ asked Prince Margis. ‘Would you be so kind as to tell us your own tale, of how you came to be in Telmar?’

‘Later,’ said Tash shortly. ‘Come, Gerald. Mummy can tell you later.’

‘I will put in all the parts I have had to leave out in talking to these men,’ Josie whispered to Gerald.

‘No,’ said Gerald, shaking his head obstinately. ‘I want to stay.’


	27. Also Mostly Concering Gazelles

Josie had finished her tale more curtly than she had intended, and afterwards had gone back to her rooms to wait for Tash to come out of his sulk. She was not sure where he had gone, but he had seemed very glum indeed at being rejected by Gerald. For his part, Gerald was tired and doing his best not to be, screaming and running around and striking out at Josie when she tried to get him to settle, and it was a long hour before she got him to calm down and drift off to a teary nap in the corner.

She flung herself down on her bedclothes, feeling the smooth silk against her face. Tears welled in her eyes, but she fought them down. All the things she had left out of her story – the things she would not tell Gerald either, if she were to tell it again – were roiling inside and making her feel horrible. There were so many things that it was so much easier just not to think of.

‘Lady Josie?’ It was the delicate musical voice of the gazelle Mirilitha, speaking from the curtained doorway. She had sat quietly listening at a respectful distance from the men while Josie had told the tale of how she had come to be Mistress of Telmar.

‘Yes?’ said Josie, sitting up. ‘Come in, if you like.’

‘Thank you, Lady Josie,’ said Mirilitha. ‘I would like to speak with you, if it is not too bold of me.’

‘Of course it is not too bold of you,’ said Josie. ‘And please just call me Josie. I don’t want to be a Lady lording it over you, just because you are a talking animal and the Lion supposedly put us men in charge of you once upon a time.’

‘Thank you, Lady- thank you, Josie,’ said Mirilitha again, stepping into the room and pacing over to Josie. ‘I am so very glad that you are alive and safe. You have changed a great deal, Josie, but you are not dead, or – broken, into an evil sorceress – and this makes me happier than I can say.’

‘It must have been horrible for you when I was taken away,’ said Josie. ‘I hope you did not get into too much trouble on my account.’

‘We were very worried,’ said the gazelle. ‘It was awful. Murbitha wanted to turn back at once, but I said we should go on and tell his Lordship what had happened. So in the end I did that. When his Lordship had to return to Balan – when he had the news about his brother – I went back to Caladru’s people. And then I did not get into so much trouble: though Caladru was angry with all of us. Caladru blamed Radamatha the most, for sending you off with us, when it turned out that was the wrong thing to do. But I did not get into so much trouble, since I ran off with Kodoru before I could. Kodoru and I were not the last to leave. In the end more than half of Caladru’s people went away, and now we live in several little herds instead of one big one.’

‘I am sorry that my bad luck went on to cause so much trouble to your people,’ said Josie. ‘I was only with you a little while, but I do think about all of you often. What has happened since then? How are Murbitha and the others?’

‘It is not at all your fault, Lady Josie,’ said Mirilitha. ‘The old women say that the troubles were stored up over many years, and many things would have brought them out.’

Josie could tell the truth in this, but she still did not like to think that she had been the straw that had broken the camel’s back.

Mirilitha went on in her lilting voice. ‘Murbitha stayed with Caladru, and she is the herbkeeper and lorekeeper for that herd now, since Radamatha died the winter before last.’

‘I am sorry to hear that she is dead,’ said Josie. ‘She was kind to me, and I do not think that it is her fault at all that I was taken by the ifrits.’

‘It is kind of you to say so,’ said Mirilitha.

‘What of Alabitha?’ asked Josie, remembering the first kindly voice she had heard when she was spilled into this new world, and thinking of the innocent girl she herself had been when she first walked alongside the Lion’s Pool. She felt sorry for that girl she had been, as if she were a stranger.

‘Alabitha went with her mother Falabitha to join Olodru, when the herd was broken,’ said Mirilitha. ‘His herd wanders mostly away to the south, near the edge of the hills of the Pugrahan. From what I hear, she is turning out beautiful and clever, but not overwise – probably the same as you were told of me, when I was not much older than she is – though perhaps they did not say I was clever.’

‘I am sure they told me you were clever,’ said Josie, with a little laugh, reaching out a hand to pat the gazelle girl’s neck. ‘So you dwell with Kodoru now?’

‘Yes, Josie,’ said Mirilitha. ‘I live in a little herd with Kodoru; we live mostly not far from where you were carried off. I have two foals – Ishmu and Zoratha.

‘Congratulations,’ said Josie. ‘I am sure they are beautiful and as quick-witted as you are.’

‘You are very kind to say so,’ said Mirilitha. ‘And congratulations to you, also: I can see for myself that your son is very clever and finely-formed.’

‘Thank you,’ said Josie. She remembered how when she had felt her body beginning to change she had felt nothing but fear and shame. She had asked Tash to seek out a certain plant with white hairs on its leaves that grew in shady places on stony ground. But Tash had picked the wrong leaves, or they worked differently on human women than on gazelles, or there had been some other mischance. Josie had been very ill for a night and a day, but her womb had not convulsed to push out the half-formed child. Soon after that Tash could smell and feel that she was different and she had to explain to him what was happening. Tash had been pleased to have a child from the beginning; she thought he understood that he could not possibly have made him, but she had never been able to bring herself to explain exactly what had happened.

Then Josie began to feel the stirring in her belly, at first something she thought she imagined, and then more and more, until it was obvious that there was a creature inside her, a demanding thing as willful as herself. She had been sick for months, and ached all over, and her body had been stretched like toffee and torn like cardboard, and she had been through an agony that seemed to last forever when she thought she would die and half hoped she would, and at the end of it she had a slimy mewling creature that did not seem human. She had called him after her sister, in hope that she would not think of him always as the son of the bandit chief; and sometimes days would pass now when she did not remember who he was. Whatever Tash knew or guessed, he had been devoted to the boy from the very beginning, when he was nothing more than a strange way Josie smelled and a story she told him; and now Gerald loved him in return, in as much as he could in his selfish infant way. ‘He is the son of Tash,’ Josie told herself, over and over again. ‘The son of Tash.’

‘It seemed when we were travelling that Kodoru was courting you,’ said Josie. ‘Murbitha said he was not serious.’

‘He was as serious as he could be,’ said Mirilitha. ‘He is like Arabitha also – cunning but not wise – but has been a good husband. And with Ruatha and me to temper him, he is well on his way to building a fine herd.’

‘Ruatha?’ asked Josie.

‘She is my sister-wife. You probably do not remember her.’

‘I cannot understand what it would be like, to be happy being one- one of many wives, like that.’

‘You are not a gazelle, Lady Josie,’ said Mirilitha, shifting uncomfortably. ‘So you cannot really understand.’

‘Of course not, you are right.’

‘When Prince Margis came through our land, I knew that I had to find out the ending of your story,’ said Mirilitha. ‘So I left my family behind for a time; I could not have done so, if Ruatha were not there to look after Kodoru and the foals when I was gone.’

‘That is good.’ Josie felt her eyes welling up with tears again. ‘I wish I knew what it was.’

‘What it was, Lady Josie?’

‘The ending to my story,’ said Josie. She choked back a sob, and gushed out the words. ‘Oh, I do not know what to do, Mirilitha. I don’t know who I am. I don’t know what I have become here. I feel as if I am the most desperately wicked girl who ever lived. I did not do what Aslan wanted me to do, and I thought he had punished me, but would leave me alone. And it got more bitter all the time, being left alone, so I was not sure that I wanted to be left alone; but now you have all come here, and it seems as if Aslan is giving me another chance to do what he wants; but I don’t know if that is really what it is, or how he will punish me if I refuse, and what will happen if I do what he wills.’

‘I am sorry, Lady Josie. You are confusing me.’

Josie could see that she was upsetting the gazelle- as always when her kind were nervous, Mirilitha was acting as if she wished she could bolt for the door and fly far away. So Josietook a deep breath and tried to make herself speak more slowly and calmly.

‘Please, just Josie. I am sorry, Mirilitha, this is not your concern. I should not talk to you like this. So much has happened, and there are so many things I would like to talk about – with my sister, I would like to talk with my sister – but she is dead.’ It felt strange and cruel to say out loud that her sister was dead. ‘But you are as close to a sister as anyone I know in this world. And I do not know what I should do.’

‘It is not my place to tell a Daughter of Helen what she should do,’ said Mirilitha meekly. ‘But if the Lion wills that something should be done, we are taught that we should will it to be done too.’

‘Those are the rules of this world,’ said Josie, both resigning herself to them and resenting them as she kept up her efforts not to go to pieces. ‘I suppose I must do what must be done, and see what happens.’

‘I am sure you will do what is right, Josie,’ said Mirilitha. ‘The Lion would not bring us all safely through so much to this place if it were not so. If you are meant to do something, you will do it now, and not fail.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Josie. ‘I hope you are right.’

Mirilitha put her head down next to Josie, and after a moment Josie began to run her hand over her fur, as if she were a dog. Mirilitha did not seem to mind. ‘I do wish that you could stay here,’ she said.

‘I need to get back to my children – and my husband and sister-wife and sister-children,’ said Mirilitha. ‘It is good to see you, Josie, but this is a grim place for gazelles.’

After a minute she went on.

‘If you will forgive me speaking as if I were a Daughter of Helen, Josie, I do not understand why you would stay here, instead of going to the lands where men dwell. After we have done what Aslan wills – if it is to be – if we can free the dumb beasts of this place who should not be dumb beasts – you could return with us to Calormen. Then you could live among men, at no very great distance from the land where we live, and come speak with us whenever you wished.’

‘I must stay here with my husband,’ said Josie. ‘I cannot take him to the lands of men. The men would not understand. Tash is not a man. Neither is he a talking beast. He does not fit in this world.’

‘If you treat him as a Son of Frank, it might be in time that the other men will treat him the same way? In time?’

‘I can hear what they say when they think I cannot hear, Mirilitha. And when they speak of him even when they know I can hear, I hear the word ‘monster’ in their voices.’ I am the true monster, thought Josie. Tash cannot help but be what he is, but I have pretended the rules of my own world did not hold here, knowing in my heart that they did. I have done wrong to Tash, to make him my husband, and I have done wrong in the sight of God. It is obvious now that the men of Calormen are here; I hear their voices, and smell them, and know that they are my people, and I have done a monstrous thing.

‘They have only been here a very little time, Josie,’ said Mirilitha gently. ’After more time, it may be-‘

‘No,’ said Josie. ’No, he cannot live among men. So neither can I.’

‘Lady Josie-‘ began Mirilitha, but Josie interrupted her, determined to change the subject.

‘Dear Mirilitha, do you think you could sing me one of the songs of the gazelles? You sing so beautifully, and I have often remembered the sound of your people singing.’

‘What sort of a song do you wish me to sing, Josie?’

‘I do not care. Anything.’

‘A happy song, or a sad one?’

‘It does not matter. A sad song will fit my mood, and that will be good; but a happy one might lift it, and that would also be good.’

Mirilitha thought a little time, while Josie sat quietly by her side and waited, and then she began to sing.

***

Tash returned not long after sunset, and curled up around his wife. She was quiet and stiff at first, and through she relaxed after a time her face looked to Tash like she had been weeping.

‘Do not be sad, Josie,’ he told her, running the smooth backs of his claws over the smoother white skin of her forehead. How splendid she was, he thought: he had found nothing in any world to compare to the look and feel of her, his Josie, Mistress of Telmar.

‘And you should not get so angry,’ she told him. ‘Prince Margis does not mean any harm. He is only trying to be friendly.’

‘I am sorry I upset you,’ Tash apologised. ‘But I wish they would do what they came here to do, and then go away.’

‘So do I,’ said Josie, biting her lip in the way Tash knew meant she was not sure of what she was saying.

Tash tried not to be afraid. ‘The men have not said what the owl said, that they have come here to find the secrets of Telmar. I wonder what secrets they hope to find.’

‘We will not tell them about the apples,’ said Josie, patting Tash’s arm in a reassuring way. ‘They caused enough trouble when the sorceror had them.’

Tash went on. ‘If they are not looking for the sorceror’s magic for themselves, it seems strange that they would come all this way just to look upon Telmar, and see for themselves that the sorceror was dead and you are not an enemy.’

‘I expect it is Aslan’s doing,’ said Josie with a sigh. ‘You were there when Prince Margis said that he has always felt a desire to come here, just because nobody has, and he admitted himself that it did make sense. He said he meant to go here long before we came to this world – well, before I came here.’

‘I wonder still what he is not telling us,’ said Tash. ‘Maybe they have come seeking the apples, or something else the magician had.’

‘It could be,’ said Josie.

‘I can tell you are worried,’ said Tash. ‘I am sorry I upset you. I will do my best to be more polite.’

‘Dear Tash, you are forgiven. A thousand times.’ Josie turned her head to kiss Tash’s beak. ‘I cannot tell whether the men have any dark secrets, but I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. They haven’t given us any reason to not trust them.’

‘I will try, my Josie.’

Josie softened further and pressed up against Tash in a way she had not done since the Calormenes had come to Telmar. ‘Do you want to hear the song Mirilitha sang me this afternoon? I cannot sing it anywhere as well as she could, of course, but I can try.’

‘I would like that,’ said Tash. So Josie put her lips close to Tash’s head and softly sang to the tune the gazelle had sung that afternoon.

 

Bring back to me the songs

The songs we sang long ago;

Bring back to me the sweet, sad music

That warmed the cold hearts of the people.

Too quiet are the streams and pools;

Too silent the cliffs and gorges;

Look my way with your dark eyes

And stir up a thousand echoes.

 

Fill me again with the fire

That first made my dust into flame:

We are young and thirsty with desire,

And we will drink at the pool of desire.

 

The song sets our feet-dancing

The song sets our hearts dancing,

The song make our spirits dance

And makes stone flow like blood.

 

Soft amid the rushes of the March Plain of Sha

The breeze of morning sings:

Bring me the song that is like fire

Brighter and clearer than the song of the breeze of morning.


	28. The Bitch of Telmar

Blackbriar limped into the hall where they were eating breakfast, unseen by Jemin who was meant to be keeping watch over the gate. The first one to notice her was Gerald.

‘Doggie!’ he cried, delighted.

‘Onyx, girl!’ called Prince Margis, pushing his chair back from the table with alacrity.

Blackbriar allowed herself to be gathered into Prince Margis’ arms. ‘She is hurt; been in a fight, to look at her. But none of the wounds seem over deep. I wonder, where has she been?’

‘To see her people, I expect,’ said Josie. ‘I think they – or some of them – might not have taken kindly to her return. Will you bring her over here so she can lick my hand, Prince Margis?’

‘Of course, Lady Josie,’ said the Prince, after a puzzled second. Blackbriar was content to be handed to Josie, and sat calmly enough on the Mistress of Telmar’s lap in a way the wild Blackbriar never would have. Gerald wriggled down from his own chair, a heavy thing which had been pushed against the table so he could not fall out, and padded over to pet the dog.

‘Is it true, that you have been to see your people?’ Yes.

‘You left the other day when we were talking about the secret chamber,’ said Josie. ‘Do you know already what we need to do with it?’ Yes.

‘She says she knows,’ Josie reported. ‘Gerald, that’s enough. Now we must just figure out what she knows.’ She continued more slowly. ‘It would be easiest to turn her into a woman, so-’ Yes –reluctantly, Josie thought, but yes. ‘She can tell us. She says yes. Tash, shall you and I get her a morsel from the chamber?’

‘Truly this will be a marvel,’ enthused Prince Margis. ‘I must say I am curious to see how Onyx will appear as a woman.’ But in his voice was not a little unease, for a man’s dog sees many things that are usually kept hidden from a maidservant.

‘A marvel indeed, my Prince,’ agreed Jardil, concealing any enthusiasm he may have felt.

Josie set the dog back on the floor. ‘Blackbriar, I will meet you in my chambers in a few minutes. I will get a more pleasant morsel for you this time.’

***

Josie and Tash took a little fragment of birdsflesh from the feast laid out in the secret chamber, and then Josie shooed Tash back to the great hall. ‘You should look after our guests, Tash. I will see to Blackbriar.’

Blackbriar came up and nosed at Josie’s hand, and took the piece of meat from her. Josie sat down on a cushion to wait, and listened to Blackbriar moving about finding a comfortable place near the fire.

‘I am so glad that you made it safely to the human lands, Blackbriar,’ said Josie. ‘And so glad that you made it back safe again.’

‘You said so before,’ said Blackbriar, and as she began speaking her voice was almost a growl, but when she had finished it was the voice she had spoken with when she was a woman before. Last time Josie had not felt anything when Blackbriar transformed, but this time she could feel the magic in her bones: it rang through them, like vibrations through pipes. For a long instant she felt as though she were a musical instrument on which a deep and ancient song were being played, and she remembered how she had first felt when she came into this new world, like she was awake for the first time. She also felt horribly, just at the end of the long instant, as if she were about to throw up; there was a smell in the room that she had not noticed before – that had probably been there forever – but that seemed just at that instant to be unbearably vile, like fish had smelled when she had been pregnant.

‘Are you alright?’ Josie asked.

‘I think so, my Lady Josie,’ said Blackbriar. ‘It is easier knowing what will happen. And my leg does not hurt as much. I mean my arm. It is my arm that does not hurt as much.’

‘That’s good,’ said Josie, not feeling quite able to get up off the cushion yet. ‘Since there are men here, we need to get you tidied up and looking like a proper woman before they see you. I will give you a hand.’

‘You have given me two already,’ said Blackbriar, in a voice serious enough that Josie did not know if she was making a joke or not.

‘I’ll help you,’ Josie said, standing up, still feeling the last echoes of the ancient song ringing in her bones,

‘Thank you,’ said Blackbriar. ’I have spent much more time among men watching what they do, so I should be able to dress like you do easier than before. But I may still need help.’

***

The Blackbriar who emerged a half hour later with Josie, clad in ill-matched silks that the ifrits had seized from unfortunate caravans many years before, was a more knowing and assured woman than the Blackbriar who had worn her shape before. She had travelled long among men, and learned much of their ways, and as she walked slowly in was careful to avoid any doggish mannerisms. She had the same mane of black hair, which though Josie had taken some pains to comb it was still unruly, and the same face, a shade darker than Jardil’s, but like his it was creased with care. Josie had bandaged her arm, and as she walked in she cradled it protectively. Had Tash a better eye for the things that men notice he would have thought her a vastly more womanish woman than she had been before; but to Margis and the other Calormenes she still looked like a wild, fey thing, more likely to be a djinn or a dryad than a Daughter of Helen. You should remember that though their world seemed already old to them, it was very young compared to ours, and had no races of men that had fallen entirely into savagery.

Gerald ran eagerly up toward her as she entered, then stopped uncertainly while still some distance away and retreated back to Tash, uncharacteristically quiet.

‘I greet you, my Prince,’ said Blackbriar, in a voice with a woody quality that made her seem even more like a dryad. ‘My Lord Jardil. My Lord Tash.’ She made little bows to each one as she spoke, then made a general bow of greeting that took in the other occupants of the hall.

‘The peace of the Lion be with you, Blackbriar,’ said Prince Margis. ‘You have been a faithful companion to me. It is strange to see you in this form.’

‘It is strange to see you with the eyes of this form, my Prince,’ said Blackbriar, turning the corners of her lips upwards with conscious attention to what each individual muscle in her face was doing. ‘I bring word from the Lion. I have met him.’

‘Is- is he here?’ asked Prince Margis, with boyish wonder.

Jardil’s usually imperturbable face was briefly clouded with foreboding; the other men showed excitement and awe, while Mirilitha’s movements spoke of mingled hope and terror. Like Josie, her recognition of the goodness of Aslan was mingled with a deep-seated fear of the predator God. Ofrak was asleep, and no one had thought to wake him. Any observer would have found only Tash wholly unreadable. He was thinking of the last time he had spoken with Aslan; of the warning, and everything that had followed from it. He felt a strange wave of giddiness; the magic of the apple stirring in his blood, though he did not know it.

‘No, he is not here,’ said Blackbriar. ‘He spoke to me on the journey here, a few days ago. He was in the guise of a cat, as I saw him once before. He told me what must be done, to make my people talking beasts again. So that is where I went, to tell them, when you went to – that place.’ She held herself stiffly. ‘And why I am in this shape, so you may know too.’

Tash dreaded what she might say, so was not impatient for her to get to the explanation; and Prince Margis was still overcome with amazement at her transformation and the mention of Aslan.

‘The food needs to be set up in the forest. The Lion says you will know the place- my Prince, and the Lady Josie. Then it may be that some of my people will come. They must eat of the food to become men, like I am, and then eat again of the food while they are men, and then they will be able to speak ever afterwards, they and their children. The Lion says that others will come to try and stop them; and then you must protect the feast. You, my Prince, and the Lady Josie.’

Prince Margis nodded. ‘The others- are they beasts, like yourself, Blackbriar?’

‘Some of them will be, my Prince,’ said Blackbriar. Her undamaged arm was visibly trembling, and her face was crumpled with anxiety, and the Prince looked on her with a gaze full of pity.

‘Please sit down, my faithful servant,’ he said. He motioned for Eyit to fetch the newly woman-shaped Blackbriar water and food. ‘I surmise that your visit to your people did not turn out well?’

‘I know one of those who will attack us,’ she said. ‘The leader of the pack, Whitejaw. He will have nothing to do with this- and will lead many of the dogs of Telmar to oppose us, if things stay as they are.’

‘Shall I go to speak them? Myself, and the Lady Josie? Perhaps we might persuade them? There can be no race of beasts that does not have some respect for the Sons of Frank.’

‘It might be tried,’ said Blackbriar, but her tone suggested this would be hopeless. It seemed suddenly colder in the great hall. ‘A few of my people I think will come – a few listened and remembered the old tales. Cinder, Deerwater – how strange it sounds to make their names into speech!’ She restrained herself with an effort from chewing at her injured arm. ‘But I fear most have forgotten, and will follow Whitejaw, to their own destruction.’

‘There is something more,’ said Tash. Compared to the speech of the humans, his voice sounded as harsh as the screech of a crow. He could hear a deeper sorrow in Blackbriar’s word, something more than her sorrow for her people, something in the rhythm and tone of her words that was not a human sadness.

‘Yes, Lord Tash,’ said Blackbriar, bowing her head so that long hanks of dark hair fell over her eyes. ‘I must still go and speak to the pigs: so the Lion says. There is a long hatred between my people and them.’

‘Then shall we go with you?’ asked Prince Margis.

‘No, thank you, my Prince,’ said Blackbriar. ‘They know men are hunters. They will flee before you draw near.’

‘There is still something more,’ growled Tash suspiciously.

‘No,’ said Blackbriar, looking away from him. She tore gratefully into the bread Eyit had brought her, filling her mouth so that she could not speak.

‘Very well then,’ said Margis. ‘This entreaty of Blackbriar to the pigs will take some little time yet, and we cannot set up the feast yet, but there is much we can do to get things in readiness. We can bring everything up from the treasure chamber; and there is the question of where to set the feast. Have you a place in mind, Lady Josie?’ He looked to the archway leading from the hall, where Josie still stood, having followed a little behind Blackbriar when she entered the hall and remained standing while she spoke, a fly on the wall of her own castle.

‘I don’t know,’ said Josie.

‘It needs to be a site that can readily be defended,’ said Jardil, taking the opportunity to instruct the young Mistress of Telmar. ‘And at no great distance from the castle, both for ease of access and the likelihood that it will then lie in territory unclaimed by the other tribe of beasts.’

Prince Margis waved a dismissal. ‘Yes, yes, Jardil. That is all perfectly clear. I can do that much myself; but Aslan expects Lady Josie to decide. For all we know she has been chosen expressly for the task, and brought from another world to this place in order to carry it out.’

It seemed unlikely to Tash that this could be a particularly important part of the duty Aslan expected Josie to carry out, and Josie evidently felt the same. Josie walked slowly to the table and stood between Tash and the Prince. ‘I am honoured, Prince Margis,’ she said uncomfortably. ‘I do not think it can be as important as all that. And it was to be both of us who chose the place for the feast, as Blackbriar said.’

‘Perhaps we could venture out together and find a place then,’ said Prince Margis amiably. ‘Bearing in mind all that Jardil has said, of course.’ He nodded at his advisor in a conciliatory way.

‘I will come with you, my Prince,’ offered Blackbriar.

‘I know the valley well,’ said Tash. ‘I will come with you too.’

‘Of course, Lord Tash,’ said Prince Margis courteously.

‘We will not take long,’ said Josie. ‘And it would be better if Gerald stayed here. So if you do not mind staying behind, dear Tash?’

Tash bowed his head and let his arms droop. ‘As you wish,’ he growled.

‘Do not worry, dear Tash. It is our valley, and no harm will come to me. It will just be an easier task without Gerald, and I would not like to leave him Mirilitha with him alone, he would trample all over her.’

‘The dogs will smell Blackbriar, and be angry,’ Tash pointed out.

‘I will stay behind,’ said Blackbriar hurriedly.

‘Please, dear Tash,’ said Josie. ‘I would rather Gerald not go into the forest right now. Perhaps I am worried, like you are worried, but I promise we will be alright.’

‘As you wish,’ Tash growled, but less obstinately than before.

‘Thank you, dear Tash,’ said Josie. ‘I will get ready.’ She kissed Tash’s beak and disappeared back through the archway.

The woman who had been a dog sat at the table and ate her meal like the men she had carefully watched eat for the past few years; and Gerald climbed back into one of the chairs of heavy black wood and kicked his feet while he played with little torn pieces of bread, setting them in rows in some game whose rules seemed at each moment perfectly clear, though he could not have explained them. The leader of the men who had always been men sat and looked over the table from one end, his face calm, his eyes bright with excitement; at the other end of the table Tash hunched, like a great grey fish-eagle brooding over a nest of sticks. Unseen beyond the blue sky the stars rolled slowly overhead, the stars that had been so terrifying to Tash when he first saw them and were now so familiar. His bones itched with stolen magic. There was a sense of one world passing and another coming into being. A door was opening into a terrifying void, and irresistibly Tash was being pulled through it. Then it would slam shut behind him, inexorable and final.

***

‘It was magic,’ Jemin protested. ‘The bitch snuck in by magic. The sorceress hid her, just like she changed her into a woman.’

‘Rat’s shit,’ replied Hurras, pouring feed into the black mare’s manger from a sack. ‘You just weren’t looking.’

‘I was looking,’ said Jemin.

‘At your cock, maybe,’ said Karifar, with a coarse laugh. ‘Thinking of that slattern in Arza Kol.’

‘The king would have had you flogged if you missed so much as a rat crossing the lines,’ growled Hurras, ignoring Karifar’s boorishness. ‘You’re lucky the Prince is merciful.’

‘It is different here,’ said Jemin, glaring at Karifar. ‘It’s not the same as manning a guardpost against bandits. Even if it wasn’t magic, this ruin is full of hidden ways.’

Hurras grunted and went on working, by his manner showing that he took a dim view of Jemin’s excuse. The hall that had been made over for use as a stable was warm in the afternoon sun, and heavy with the smell of horse. Eyit raked up dung silently in the corner. Karifar idled, waiting for Hurras to empty the sack so he could go fill it again. Unspoken words hung in the air, as palpable as the horse-stink.

‘The Prince knows what he is doing,’ said Hurras. ‘We will be back in Arza Kol by midsummer’s eve, with all the treasures of Telmar. Magic or no magic.’

‘I don’t deny it,’ said Karifar. ‘But there will be trouble yet.’

‘Of course there will be trouble,’ agreed Hurras, tossing the empty sack at Karifar with a forcefulness that was almost savage. ‘That’s why we’re here.’

‘Agreed,’ said Karifar, clutching the sack.

‘The bitch won’t be much trouble,’ said Hurras, with the air of someone who has seen much trouble and knows well who is most likely to cause it. ‘Neither will the sorceress. It will be the beast. Tash.’

‘Lord Tash,’ said Eyit from the corner.

‘So be it, and the Lion save us,’ said Karifar, spitting on the floor. ‘Lord fucking Tash. Witch’s dugs, there will be trouble.’


	29. The Feasting Glade

‘This is where I we first met Blackbriar,’ said Josie. ‘I think it was this place.’ She had crossed the stream with Prince Margis and gone a little downstream on the other side, on a path that she knew well through the brambles, to a place where the grass was short and tufty under the trees. ‘Tash saw her before I heard her; she came from the side away from the river, over there.’ The ground felt good under her feet here: not too soft, and not too hard, like the bed of the baby bear in the story.

‘This might be a good place then, you are thinking?’ said Prince Margis, his voice warm and sympathetic.

‘Yes,’ said Josie. ‘I think it will do as well as any.’

Josie could hear Prince Margis’ footsteps paced about the glade. ‘It is close to the castle, that is true; I fancy I could almost shout back and forth and talk with Karifar on the battlements from here. And it will be difficult for enemies to come up from the stream side. It is exposed to the thick of the forest on the other side, but that is a sword that cuts either way: it may embolden our timid friends as well as our enemies.’

‘The only other place as near by is larger, but it is still a bit squashy underfoot from the snowmelt,’ said Josie. ‘It is probably even more hemmed in by the forest than this clearing. Do you want go there?’

‘Not yet, Lady Josie’ said Margis. ‘I wish to have more of a look around here first.’

‘As you wish, Prince Margis,’ Josie replied with the same formality, and stood in a patch of warm sunlight on the edge of the glade while the Prince continued to poke about in the bushes at the edge of the clearing – much like Blackbriar had done, Josie thought.

Margis had insisted on steadying her arm when they crossed the stream – which was reasonable enough, she knew; though she knew the stepping stones very well, and was well-used to making the crossing alone, it would surely be alarming to watch for someone who was not used to going about unsighted, and to see her do it for the first time and not help her she supposed a man would have to be a very great cad indeed. So it had been an entirely reasonable thing to do. But she had felt his touch again like something electric and dangerous, and it had made her conscious again of the singing of the ancient magic in her bones, a music that she could only just feel, but that had not yet entirely died away after being reawakened by Blackbriar’s transformation. She had been careful, since they had crossed the stream, to keep a good distance between herself and the Prince.

‘You are right, this place will do as any,’ said Margis. ‘And it seems no more likely to harbour unwelcome surprises than anywhere else in the Vale of Telmar.’ His footsteps approached Josie.

‘It should hold a pleasant memory for Blackbriar,’ said Josie. ‘Are we decided, then?’

‘I am decided if you are decided,’ said Margis calmly.

‘It hardly seems worth the trouble of coming out here especially.’

‘Ah, but Aslan told Blackbriar that we would know the right place, so it must be important.’ Margis was standing quite close to Josie now. ‘I would not call it a pleasant glade, but it seems more pleasant than most of this Vale. It is rather a grim place.’

‘I suppose it is,’ said Josie, remembering the last time she had left the Vale of Telmar. ‘I suppose the evil the men of Telmar did has left a mark on it. Maybe it will be better after the beasts are changed back.’

‘It is not right for you to live your life in a place that is so marked with evil,’ said Margis. ‘It is so dark and cheerless.’

‘We will not stay here forever,’ said Josie. It was what she and Tash had said to each other, when they parted from Blackbriar on the road to the lands of men. But they were more buried in Telmar now than they had ever been, since her tears had first fallen on his stone body.

‘And your son,’ said Margis sympathetically. ‘It is not good for him to grow up alone, in such a place.’

‘He is not alone,’ said Josie. ‘But, yes, I understand.’ She understood very well what she seemed to be. She understood very well what she was. She hardened her voice. ‘I do not wish to discuss such matters.’

‘As you wish, Lady Josie,’ said Margis. ‘I apologise if I have given offence.’ He seemed to be standing very close to her now, and she lifted a hand suspiciously, more suddenly and expansively than she usually would to smooth back her hair. Her hand did not brush Prince Margis.

‘There is no need,’ said Josie. ‘We should best return now.’

‘Of course, Lady Josie,’ said Margis courteously.

In her haste Josie missed a step on recrossing the stream, and would have fallen into the water if Margis had not caught her. He kept hold of her arm as they crossed the rest of the stepping stones, and left it lightly there as they made their way along the by now well-worn path to where the once-hidden stairs led upward to the castle. She was aware, so very aware, as they walked along, of the gentle pressure of his fingers on the flesh of her arm, with only a thin bit of silk between them. She was aware too of the ancient magic, clearer and more insistent than every before.

‘Why should you care what I do, Prince Margis?’ Josie asked him, pausing at the base of the stairs.

‘You know I sent Ofrak ahead to seek you out, Lady Josie. It has always been in my mind, since I knew you were here, to meet you should I ever follow in the footsteps of my ancestors to Telmar. It is no small thing for the world for someone such as you to come into it. I do not think it has happened since the world began.’ Prince Margis squeezed Josie’s arm gently, than withdrew his hand.

‘That is not an answer to my question.’

‘Patience, I beg of you. I think- I know- that you could do much good in the world, because of who you are, beyond this task that the Lion has set us.’

A shiver ran through Josie at the sound of the word ‘us’, and she felt her bones trembling.

‘What could I do?’ asked Josie. ‘I am not truly a sorceress, as you must know by now. I have just been lucky to have this place fall into my hands. I am only an ordinary – woman.’

‘Yes, Lady Josie. You do not have the look of a sorceress, Jardil says. He has seen a few men who are- or who have meddled in such matters, let us say- and they have a knowing look to them, an experienced look, that you do not have. But there is still magic about you, Lady Josie; heavy magic, even if you do not know it yet. Jardil says so, and I see it in you too.’ Josie went to protest, but Prince Margis talked on over the top of her. ‘But that is not the most important thing, Josie, even if you had no magic at all, hidden or overt, you can still do much, because of who you are. You are a pure-blooded Daughter of Helen- or should I say, Sister of Helen, because your mother and grandmother never set foot on this world. You are of the race of men who were set by Aslan to rule over the animals, unmingled with dryad or ifrit or river god or any of the other creatures who are like men but are not men. It is a little thing, perhaps, but it is a wondrous thing to the imagination in this world. Not all of the beasts will care, as not all of the men care: maybe only a few. But those who are wise enough to know the difference are powerful among the beasts, and they will respect you when they do not respect such as I. Men and beasts are divided in this land, and you could unite them.’

‘Is that it, then?’ protested Josie. ‘You hope to – to use me, so that Calormen will rule the beasts, as well as the men?’

‘No one could, or would, use you, Lady Josie. That is not what I mean to say. I hope rather that of your own will, you would decide to do such a thing. To unite the men and the beasts, as it was meant to be.’

Josie could remember Tash saying that Aslan had said much the same thing. It still sounded to her as if the Prince wanted her to push forward his own schemes, but she let herself be mollified by his protest. ‘I’m sorry to speak harshly,’ she said.

‘And I am sorry to be the occasion of your harshness, Lady Josie,’ said Prince Margis. ‘You need not apologise: I am used to ladies who are free to speak their mind, like my own sister. But wait,’ he said, laying a hand on Josie’s arm again as she took a step toward the stairs. ‘That you are a pure Sister of Helen out of the old world is not the most important thing, not in my own thoughts, Lady Josie. Now that I have seen you, and know for myself the truth that you are no sorceress with a twisted soul, but a lady fair and young and good, it pains my heart to think of you abiding forever in this grim place, where so much evil has been done. I wish to see you among your own people, in a cheerful and pleasant place. You and your son also.’

Josie shook her head. ‘I know that what you say is true, though you flatter me more than is proper. This is my place. For now, at least, I cannot take Tash into the lands of men.’

‘It need not be so,’ said Margis. ‘We who have met the Lord Tash know he is no monster, but a brave traveller from another world. He will be honoured in Balan.’

But Josie could hear in Margis’ voice that he did not truly believe what he was saying, and she shook her head again.

‘You are used to different kinds of people here, perhaps,’ said Josie. ‘More than my own world. But I still do not think, from what I have heard of the ways of men here, that Tash could be welcome among you.’

‘You judge Calormen without giving us a fair hearing,’ said Prince Margis.

‘Maybe I do,’ said Josie. She started slowly up the stairs to the castle. ‘There is no point speaking of such things now. Let us put on this feast for the beasts of Telmar, first.’


	30. Tangled Webs

‘If you have a moment, Lord Tash, might I seek your advice on a few matters?’ asked Jardil.

‘My advice?’ asked Tash, stirred out of his gloomy thoughts. Josie was still away with Prince, and Tash felt uneasy. He would feel uneasy until she was back in his sight again.

‘Yes, Lord Tash,’ said Jardil. His piercing eyes and air of weathered resilience reminded Tash uncomfortably of the renegade thalarka who had driven him from his own world.

‘I suppose so,’ said Tash. He reminded himself that he was Lord Tash, and should act more grandly towards these men. ‘I mean, yes, Jardil of Calormen.’

‘Perhaps we might walk outside?’ suggested Jardil.

They did not walk in the garden where Tash had been a statue for so many years, but in another courtyard, paved in some places and planted in others, where Tash and Josie often let Gerald play. The plants that grew there were without thorns, white flowers with soft fleshy leaves that grew like harmless knives point-upwards from the ground, and frail bushes that draped themselves over the walls and pavement, halfway to being vines. It was also a courtyard surrounded by walls, rather than dropping away in a precipice at one side.

Tash put the boy down to play in a place where he had made a mazy arrangement of bits of broken masonry a few days before Ofrak arrived. Gerald immediately set about improving on his work, leaving the two grown-ups to their boring conversation.

‘What do you want my advice on?’ asked Tash.

The Calormene looked up at him, with the same crafty glint in his eyes that Tash remembered from the priests of his own world.

‘I thought, Lord Tash, that you might be able to render advice in this particular matter, because you have come here from another world – a world I cannot imagine – and everything here must have seemed very strange to you. For you see, it concerns one who has been taken from one place and put into another, a place which is nearly as different from the first as one world must be from another.’

‘Yes?’ said Tash, puzzled.

‘Lord Tash, some months before we left Balan my Prince was hunting in the desert that lies to the north of the city – a long day’s ride north, where there are no dwellings of men or talking beasts, only endless fields of sand to be seen as far the eye can see in every direction: except perhaps to the north the distant blue mountains of Archenland. There my Prince found one of the great eagles of the desert lying injured. They are magnificent creatures, these eagles; not speaking beasts, but as near as one can approach in terms of intelligence, and the virtues peculiar to thinking beings. One such as Blackbriar is, but without her art of making herself understood. The wing of this eagle was broken, and it was dying of thirst on the sands, and my Prince’s heart was moved to pity. He took the eagle back to Balan with us and saw that it was nursed back to health. It took some time to regain its strength, for it had taken a grievous hurt, but it is a strong-willed creature, and when we left it could fly a little ways in the gardens of the palace. Now, the Prince is very fond of it, and would keep it in the palace, for it is a splendid creature, and biddable to his will. The eagle, for its part, though it cannot speak, it grateful to the Prince, and is happy to do whatever he wishes, to please him.’

Tash still wondered where Jardil was going with this, and crooked his head to listen more attentively when the man paused for emphasis.

‘Now, my thinking, Lord Tash, is that it would be better for the eagle to return to the desert, for until it does so it will never regain the strength it once had, that it needs to soar high in the blue skies of the desert; it will grow flabby and weak in the palace gardens, and what is worse, that it will resent my Prince at the same time that it is grateful, and stay only out of duty, while inside its spirit grows sour. What do you advise, Lord Tash?’

‘I do not know why you would ask me this,’ said Tash. ‘I do not know anything about birds, just because I have feathers. You would be better off asking Ofrak.’

Jardil made a mildly dismissive gesture. ‘Ofrak is in the Prince’s service, and does not have the conviction that a man can have – or you have, my Lord Tash – to let him tell the Prince what he does not want to hear.’

‘Then,’ said Tash, still rather puzzled. ‘I would let the bird do what it wants. If it wants to stay with the Prince because it is grateful, let it stay with the Prince; and if it wants to go back to the desert, let it do that.’

‘Wise advice,’ said Jardil. ‘But it is not a speaking beast; we cannot just ask it what it wants. And, like Ofrak, it feels indebted to the Sons of Frank, and will seek to do what it thinks will please us, rather than what it truly desires; or what is truly best for it.’

Tash was silent then for a long time, watching Gerald with his pieces of stone, while it became quite clear what Jardil was really getting at.

‘You are playing games with me,’ he told Jardil. ‘This is not about an eagle. I don’t want to talk to you anymore.’

‘I am sorry to cause any offence, Lord Tash.’ Jardil bowed deeply before the feathered monster from another world. ‘I think it is important that you ponder this question.’

‘I have done all my pondering,’ growled Tash. Gerald turned to watch in wide-eyed alarm, startled by the anger in his voice.

‘It is understandable that you should be angry, Lord Tash,’ said Jardil smoothly. ‘I do not mean to cause you offence.’

‘Good,’ said Tash.

‘Just remember this,’ continued Jardil, speaking slowly and carefully, like a man who was well aware of how easily Tash could tear out his throat. ‘Like the eagle, Lady Josie will never be what is in her power to be if she stays in this place. She will never fly to the heights that she could reach. It is clear, to look at her, that she is already pining, like a bird in a cage, for the skies. Even if she does not know it herself.’

Tash loomed over Jardil and snarled at him. ‘Aslan is trying to pull us apart. And you – men- want to to take Josie away to the world of men. But we need to be together.’

‘Life is cruel,’ admitted Jardil. He held out his hands in a gesture of patience and sweet reason. ‘You are alone on this world, the one of your kind; but the Lady Josie is not. Gerald,’ he nodded to the boy, who was still watching curiously. ‘He is not. Is it fair for them to live out their lives here?’

Tash could feel the magic in his bones, bright and seething. He had a horrifying feeling of how long living out his life might be, long years without Josie stretching on and on to forever. She would stay too, if she stayed in this world. But Aslan had said they were to be separated. And what of Gerald? A thought he had pushed deep down and tried to forget, that he and Josie had often thought but never spoken of, came to him. Gerald was of this world, not of another world. The apples would not allow him to live forever. Tash glowered at Jardil without moving.

‘Daddy, what’s going on?’ asked Gerald.

‘’Nothing,’ said Tash. ‘Nothing.’

Jardil bowed again, very politely. ‘Thank you for hearing me out, Lord Tash.’ He turned and left Tash and the bow alone in the courtyard.

Gerald watched his back until it disappeared, still intrigued by the Calormene’s long beard. ‘Where’s Mummy?’ he asked.

‘She’ll be back soon,’ said Tash. ‘She’s down by the stream. You were there when she left,’ he added, chiding the boy gently.

‘Are we going to go away with the owl and the gazelle and the men?’ asked Gerald.

‘I don’t think so,’ said Tash. But he felt the cold tickle of honesty at his neck, like the iron of a knife, and said one more word to the boy. ‘Maybe’.

***

It was the warmest night it had been thus far that year, and moths gathered in the hall in numbers, casting wild shadows on the walls. Outside, the skreeting of a more voluble race of night insects could be heard whenever there was a lull in the conversation. They had gathered again around the long table in the great hall – men and beasts and thalarka, all who dwelled at that time in the ruins of Telmar. The suits of armour had been brought up entire and stood against the wall at the far end of the room, lined up behind Prince Margis and Lady Josie. Jardil sat to the left of the prince, while Tash sat to the right of Lady Josie. Josie had wanted to sit Blackbriar between her and Margis, in the place of honour, but she had not been persuadable, and sat beyond Gerald on the far side of Tash. Gerald had gotten over his initial fear of the woman Blackbriar, and now found her tremendous fun: he had spent most of the afternoon telling her everything about his life in the castle.

‘Is there anything more that needs to be done among the beasts of Telmar before we can set out the feast, Blackbriar?’

Prince Margis spoke to the woman who had until recently been his dog, without any sense of awkwardness, having adapted to the changed circumstances with the man of action’s nimble refusal to think too deeply about things.

‘I have only a little thing to do, my Prince,’ said Blackbriar. ‘It should not delay the preparing of things.’ She spoke very formally and without a trace of the doggish mannerisms that had been so pronounced the first time she had taken on human shape; she too had adapted swiftly. ‘I can go out and speak to the ones I have to speak to tomorrow, when I am a dog again, and be done long before dusk.’

‘We can plan the feast for tomorrow evening, then,’ said Prince Margis. ‘Lady Josie?’

‘If you like,’ said Josie. Her mood had gone up and then down in the few hours since she had returned from her walk with the Prince. She had been cheerful and gracious, unable to keep herself from laughing out loud; but then her own worries had seized her, and the dark and sullen mood Tash had fallen into made it worse, and through dinner she had been a quiet and scowling thing, lost in her own gloomy thoughts.

‘I am sure we will succeed, with Aslan’s help,’ said Prince Margis, smiling broadly.

‘Let us drink to the morrow,’ suggested Jardil. Eyit filled the cups that were empty with some of the sorceror’s wine.

‘To the restoration of the beasts of Telmar, in the Lion’s name,’ he said.

‘The restoration of the beasts of Telmar, in the Lion’s name,’ they all repeated, and the ones with hands lifted their cups and drank.

‘Will you allow me to propose a toast, my Prince?’ offered Ofrak, rather stiffly.

‘Of course,’ said Margis.

‘Thank you. I suggest, then, that we drink to the good health of our gracious hostess, the Lady Josie, without whom our quest would have been in vain.’ He made an owl’s bow to Josie, a very neat and tidy and courteous gesture.

‘The Lady Josie,’ they repeated, and drank again.

Now, the thing about these meals where many people sit around large tables and make toasts and try to be on their best behaviour is that very little interesting is said; even if people are on only halfway good behaviour, like Josie and Tash on this occasion, they are likely to hold their tongues and try to put on a brave face. So little will be lost be skipping ahead to later that night, when Josie was helping Blackbriar get ready for bed. Tash was in anothe rroom, keeping Gerald (who had had too many sweets) occupied as a first step toward eventually getting him to sleep.

Josie helped Blackbriar set up a bed that would be suitable for laying down in as a woman and waking up in as a dog.

‘He had a message for you, Lady Josie,’ said Blackbriar. ‘The Lion, Aslan.’

‘I thought he might,’ said Josie. ‘What does he want to say to me?’

‘He says he will speak to you himself one day,’ Blackbriar sounded uncomfortable, and less in control of her doggish nature.’ He did not tell me your story, because he says that nobody is told any story but their own: but he says he thinks of you always, and to tell you that he understands you better than you know.’

Josie flew into a temper.

‘I don’t believe a word of it. He doesn’t understand me at all. How can he? He is an all-powerful magical lion. Where was he when – when Nera was killed? Or the Prince’s brother was killed? Or when Zardeenah’s sisters were sold off as slaves? Why doesn’t he stop these things from happening? He saves some people, and lets other people die, and some people can sail through life without having to do anything, but other people he puts impossible burdens on and asks to do impossible things. How can he understand me?’

Josie could almost hear Blackbriar cringing away from her voice, like a dog that has been hit with a shoe for making a mess on the rug.

‘I am sorry- sorry to be insolent, Lady Josie,’ said the woman who had been a dog reproachfully. ‘But I don’t think you should talk about Aslan like that.’

Josie felt sorry for Blackbriar, but was still being swept away by a river of righteous rage. She did her best to calm down and not upset her further, without much success.

‘Oh- I am sorry, Blackbriar,’ she said. ‘I don’t mean to make you miserable. I will do what Aslan wants me to this time. I will. But not because I want to. Only because I am caught in a trap where I have to do this to help your people. He can boss me around if he likes, and let horrible things happen to me- make horrible things happen to me, for all I know. But I’m not going to let him pretend he understands me.’

Blackbriar was making odd snuffling noises, and it took Josie a moment to realise that she was crying, in a half-woman half-dog kind of way.

‘Oh, Blackbriar,’ she said again, feeling her way over to her. ‘I’m sorry- please don’t cry.’ She put her arms around her, and she flinched, the held herself still. ‘I’m sorry. I really am. I promise not to say such things, since they hurt you.’

‘Lady Josie,’ said Blackbriar, and sniffed, and sniffed again.

‘Blackbriar,’ said Josie.

‘Aslan says,’ she went on between snuffles, ‘that what is going to happen- to remember that it isn’t your fault.’

Josie choked back a violent urge to say that of course it wasn’t her fault, it was Aslan’s fault, and only hugged Blackbriar tighter.

‘That’s alright,’ she said after a moment.

This seemed to reassure Blackbriar, and her snuffles got quieter and further between. She wiped her face on her shoulder.

‘Did Aslan say something bad was going to happen?’ asked Josie, trying to be gentle, but unable to keep the bitterness out of her voice.

‘That- that is not part of your story,’ said Blackbriar.

‘If you say so,’ said Josie. ‘I think we are all in the same story together, whether we like it or not.’

‘I promise I will explain later, Lady Josie,’ said Blackbriar. ‘If I possibly can. I’m sorry.’

‘You don’t have to be sorry, Blackbriar,’ said Josie. ‘If you’re not supposed to tell me, you’re not supposed to tell me.’

Josie felt trapped and powerless like she had so many times before in her life, tangled up in a plot arranged by powers immeasurably greater than she was. It was as if she were a fish out of water, floundering for breath. She angrily told herself not to feel like that. She was not a blind girl that nobody wanted anymore. She was the Mistress of Telmar. She had a son; she had a husband. She was supposed to be someone in this world, she was supposed to be playing a part in a glorious heroic quest. But the world was still closed in around her like a narrow box, and she could not think of any way out of it.

‘I will explain if I can,’ promised Blackbriar again. ‘I will make everything freshly-scented.’

‘Freshly-scented is a very nice way to put it,’ said Josie, giving the woman’s shoulders a squeeze. ‘We would say ‘clear’, usually.’


	31. Aslan's Feast

Gerald does not come into this next part of the story very much, because he was rather quiet and scared for most of it, and too small to do anything on his own account. If there had been any way to leave him behind in the castle safely, Josie and Tash would certainly have done so – they were not such thoughtless parents as that – but their company was few, and they could not spare anyone to mind Gerald except for Mirilitha and Ofrak, who would have been of no use minding Gerald, and no use at all if the castle was overrun by enemies. And there was always the chance that nothing would go wrong.

But Gerald remembered that night forever, more clearly than anything that had gone before in his life. Even when he was an old man he remembered the long shadows cast by the torches, his mother and Prince Margis shining like golden fish, the beasts that crawled out of the forest and became men, the shouts and cries of men and beasts, the blood running in streams over the golden plates, and a man’s dead eyes staring at nothing.

The tables had been carried out to the glade – they did not seem so heavy at first, but had grown weightier and weightier with each step of the long stairs. The halls of Telmar had been stripped of chairs that were in tolerable repair – which also proved heavier than they first appeared – and the food and ornaments that had been stored up for generations in the secret chamber were laid out in splendour. The feast was set in two parts: two rows of plates on the ground for the beasts when they were beasts, and then the victuals set on the tables for the beasts when they were men.

‘This is serving man’s work,’ muttered Karifar, carrying his fifth or sixth chair over his head as he crossed the stream.

‘This is the work you’ll be remembered for,’ said Hurras. ‘Your whole life’ll boil down to one line in a chronicle- ‘among the Prince’s servants at the feast was an ugly son of a ghul called Karifar.’

Through the gap in the trees above the glade the constellation the men of Calormen called the Ship could be seen, all but its stern, and flaming torches were set on tall poles around the edge of the glade.

The Prince and Lady Josie were dressed in the armour that had been left in the secret chamber, and sure enough it fitted them both as well as a fish is fit by its scales. In the firelight the silver chain gleamed as if it were red gold, and flowed like water or fire over their bodies. Jardil looked upon the man he had known as a mewling babe, slow-witted boy, and impetuous youth, and felt the urge to prostrate himself at his feet; and he looked at the foolish and debauched girl who his master had set his designs upon, and knew that he would commit any crime to make her his Queen.

Prince Margis and Lady Josie truly looked like a Master and Mistress of Creation, fitting successors for King Frank and Queen Helen. The whispered echo of Aslan’s ancient charge to man to be rulers over the animals hung about them, and Ofrak said as much.

‘You look most magnificent tonight, Lady Josie,’ said the owl. ‘Like Queen Helen, when she was set to be Lady over all the animals of the world.

‘Thank you,’ said Josie.

Tash also thought Josie had never looked so splendid, and a pang of loss anticipated cut him like a priest’s sacrificial knife.

‘You are very marvellous,’ she said.

‘And how are you, dear Tash?’ said Josie with a bold smile, sword rattling at her side. ‘And my Gerald? I still wish you could have stayed in the castle.’

‘How can I stay in the castle?’ asked Tash. ‘We are together.’

‘Yes,’ said Josie, reaching out a gauntleted hand to grip one of Tash’s lower wrists.

Gerald in turn reached out to leave sticky fingerprints on Josie’s helmet. ‘Mummy shiny.’

‘Yes, she is very shiny,’ said Tash, and gently passed a hand over Josie’s helmet as well, as if he were running his fingers through her hair.

She kissed Gerald and took her place.

Josie felt as impatient as she could ever remember being. The preparations for the feast had reminded of parties she had heard about when she was younger, but had never been to. She had thought more about Australia, as she had thought more about all human things, since the Calormenes had come to Telmar, and the renewed pang of longing for her lost world made her all the more eager for something to happen. She wished Blackbriar would hurry up and return with the dogs of Telmar.

Josie and Margis sat at one table at the far end of the glade with the owl and the gazelle, so that despite their armour they might nevertheless give the impression of being the gracious hosts of the feast. The other men were seated at another table: all except Jardil, who walked the bounds of the glade for the hundredth time.

‘We will see some magic tonight,’ said Jemin. ‘See how his Lordship looks: she has already worked some magic on him.’

‘It is the Lion’s magic,’ said Eyit.

‘Yes, we will see some magic, and if we are lucky we will live through it,’ muttered Karifar.

‘If we die,’ said Eyit gravely. ‘We will die in the Lion’s service, and be reborn on the mountain at the world’s end.’

‘There will be death tonight,’ Hurras affirmed. ‘But it will not be our deaths, if the Emperor over the sea wills it so. Alambil is nowhere to be seen, but look how the Lord of Victory crests the trees.’

They spoke together in low voices, and neither the Prince nor his advisor heard a word they said, but Josie’s keen ears heard.

‘Something is coming,’ said Josie.

‘They are coming,’ called the Prince, not loudly, and waved at Jardil to stop wandering about.

‘It is not Blackbriar, I don’t think,’ said Josie. ‘It is some pigs.’

There were three pigs, great fierce-looking black ones, a boar and two sows. The boar gave a cautious look at Tash the hunter, but all three trotted forward with confidence. They made something like a little bow to Prince Margis and Lady Josie, scraping at the ground with their forefeet.

‘The Lion’s peace be upon you,’ said the Prince.

The pigs bowed again, and set to eating the food that had been put out for them, keeping carefully to one of the rows of plates and avoiding the other.

It had been terrible enough for the men of Calormen when Blackbriar had gone away and returned as a woman; but to see the pigs turning into men, their flesh moving like dough shaped by invisible hands, was a vision that would haunt Prince Margis’ dreams forever.

‘It is the Lion’s magic- the Lion’s magic,’ called Eyit, too shrill to be reassuring, when the pigs were formless things that were neither beasts nor men. But in the space of another breath, the three were men. They were hairier even than Blackbriar had been, with legs almost as thick with hair as a faun’s, and the man had a beard of thick black hair that flowed down onto his chest. The two sows had looked much the same before: but it was clear when they were transformed that one was young, a girl of the same age as Josie, while the other was old enough to be her mother.

The older woman was the first to stand on human feet, and the first to speak.

‘The peace of the Lion be with you,’ she said, and a curious smile spread across her face at the sound of her own voice. It was a strong, full, resonant voice that Josie could easily imagine singing hymns while its owner hung up the washing. ‘We thank you, messengers of Aslan. I never dreamed it would be in my life that you came to save us.’ She bowed then again, an ungainly motion that nearly lost her balance. The man and the girl bowed as well, and repeated ‘the peace of the Lion be with you’. Gruffly and haltingly in the man’s case, and shyly in the girl’s.

‘Welcome to the feast of Aslan,’ said Josie. ‘Please, sit and eat as much as you like, like men do.’

The sound of many dogs could be heard in the distance, and Jardil motioned to the men-at-arms, who rose from their table and took up positions to guard the glade. The baying of the dogs drew closer, and then two dogs shot out into the glade and took cover under one of the unoccupied tables.

‘The Lion’s peace be with you, friends,’ said Prince Margis, but there was time for nothing more, because then a pack of dogs burst out in pursuit of the pair: the wild dogs of Telmar that Josie and Tash had heard fighting over the corpse of the sorceror Yustus. At their head was a hound twice as big as Blackbriar, whose white muzzle was streaked already with bright blood.

Prince Margis lunged forward to confront the white-faced hound. Tash stood protectively over his wife and son. Jardil and Jemin stood their ground around the table where the first two dogs had taken refuge, while the other three Calormenes guarded the table where the men who had been pigs sat. Ofrak swooped down on their attackers, swiping their backs with his claws, while Mirilitha pressed herself against Josie’s mailed legs. ‘This is no place for me,’ she said, trembling, and Josie smoothed down the fur on her back.

The snarling of the attacking dogs was deafening and seemed to come from every direction at once. It was the most horrible sound Josie had ever heard. Among the snarls the shouts of the men seemed small and hollow, like empty boats adrift on a rough sea. Josie heard something more; noises in the forest of Telmar, drawing nearer to the glade.

‘More are coming,’ shouted Josie.

Whitejaw and Margis knew each other to be the leaders, and circled one another like man and monster have since stories began to be told. The sword gave Prince Margis a better reach, and he had been trained in its use since he was a snot-nosed boy little older than Gerald, so as long as he kept the beast at distance he had nothing to fear from his fangs; but Whitejaw had lived his life in the forests of Telmar, and despite being speechless had a cunning much greater than a mere beast.

The dogs that had hidden under the table, emboldened, had emerged to fight at the side of Jardil, and already two of their enemies lay dead on the grass.

A boar charged out from the undergrowth then, its flank torn, and plunged directly into battle, biting the neck of one of the dogs that was menacing Eyit. There was a crack of bone, and the dog went limp. The naked man-pigs had been fighting as best as they could along the Calormenes, kicking out at the dogs and throwing cutlery at them, but without much effect.

Another boar hurtled into the glade, nearly through to the other side before it slowed enough to turn and join the first boar in defending its kindred. It was the swiftest thing Gerald had ever seen that was not a bird.

‘The dogs are losing! They are being pushed back!’ cried Mirilitha excitedly.

‘There are more,’ said Josie, and petted the gazelle again to try and keep her calm. ‘Tash, I think you had best hand Gerald to me.’

‘As you wish,’ said Tash, and he passed the boy to the strange gleaming Mistress of Telmar who stood beside him. She stood there with a distant grim determination as the battle went on around her; it was only because she was listening as hard as she could, but it made her expression very like the expression of a true sorceress.

Then the pigs were upon them: a dozen or more large, fierce boars, and they drove straight for the man-pigs and their defenders, sending the table with the magic food flying. One that was particularly large and bristly charged at the sow-girl, and would have torn her throat out, but Eyit pushed in front of her in time. Eyit struck the boar with his sword, but at close quarters could not strike deep enough to slow it down; and then it had knocked him to the ground, and bit at his belly, swift and vicious.

Hurras and Karifar were pressed too hard by other boars to come to Eyit’s aid, but Tash strode forward, lifting his taloned hands high, throwing long monstrous shadows. A smaller boar was in his way, and he picked it bodily up and threw it aside; then he faced the great black boar. It lifted its bloody snout from Eyit and glared at him with murderous bright eyes.

‘It is not fair,’ cried Tash, and the words of rage were as good a war cry as any. The boar stood his ground and lunged at Tash’s legs. He was swifter, but Tash was stronger, and could ignore the pain of the deep gash in his calf. One pair of arms grabbed the giant boar’s neck, and another his haunch, and as it twisted in Tash’s grip he lifted it in the air and ripped its belly open with his beak, from throat to groin like you do with a knife when you are butchering a goat, so its entrails fell out in a steaming rush to the ground.

‘Praise the Lion!’ cried Hurras.

A moment later there was another triumphant cry, from Prince Margis, and a whimper that was cut off. Whitejaw had chanced a leap at the Prince’s throat, but Margis had stood his ground and aimed his sword true, and struck the leader of the dogs fair in the chest before his jaws could close.

Their attackers ran off then, not whining like the mere dumb animals of our own world would, but silently. Karifar and Jemin pursued them with violent cries as far as the edge of the glade, and cut down two more of the boars who tried to run. Tash went furthest of all, breaking and tearing the bodies of their fleeing enemies until he was called back by Josie.

Eyit was dead. The great boar had bitten through an artery, and he had bled out into a broad dark patch on the grass. Hurras knelt beside him, his head bowed. ‘He is gone, my Prince.’

‘Alas!’ said Prince Margis, removing his helmet and kneeling down beside Eyit’s body. ‘You are in Aslan’s country now.’

‘It is as he wanted,’ said Hurras. And he looked around bitterly at the feasting glade that had been a battlefield.

One of the two boars who had come to fight on their side was also dead; but of the survivors, none had very grievous injuries. Worst was the man-boar with the spreading beard, who had forgotten he was not a boar anymore and waded too rashly into the battle. He sat dizzily on the ground, comforted by the sow-women, with blood trickling from half a dozen bite wounds.

One of the boars who had attacked them and was injured did not flee, but collapsed at Josie’s feet, as though throwing himself on her mercy. Josie put out a hand to ward the others away from him.

‘It stinks of blood,’ she said, so softly that only Mirilitha could hear.

‘I am sorry for my kindred,’ said the sow-woman, leaving the side of the boar-man. ‘I wish they had joined us in joy, and not come to destroy and to slay.’ And she got down on her hands and knees by the body of Eyit and nuzzled his dead face with hers, for she had no knowledge of the ways of men.

‘It was none of your doing,’ said Josie. ‘I am glad you came.’

‘We are glad you came,’ said Prince Margis. ‘We must see to the others.’

The men and Tash dragged away the bodies of the beasts, and Eyit’s body was set carefully aside, and the feast was restored as best they could. It was a ghastly thing to eat among all those corpses, with the stink of blood so strong; but they had no choice but to finish the thing they had begun. The two dogs who had fought on their side ate and became a man and woman, neither old nor young, who seemed to be a couple, and they shyly and wondering exchanged greetings with the Lady of Telmar and the Prince of Calormen. The boar who had come upon them like an arrow sprung from a bow turned into a tall man with an unkempt reddish beard, who looked about himself in wonder but did not speak. The boar who had sought Josie’s protection ate also, and became a jowly man with thick arms and legs.

‘I am sorry, my Lord and Lady,’ he said, bowing his bloodied head toward Josie. ‘I should not have bared my teeth to the Sons of Frank.’

‘Your life should be forfeit,’ the sow-woman told him. ‘These men should roast you on a spit.’

‘We could never do that to any of you,’ said Josie earnestly. ‘Not since we found out what you were.’

‘You can serve us better in life than in death,’ said Prince Margis sternly. ‘Have you all eaten of Aslan’s food while in the shape of men? Then you should come with us. I feel it will not be safe for you to remain in the forest.’

The beasts who were men for a time voiced their agreement to the Prince.

‘What of Blackbriar?’ asked Josie. ‘Blackbriar is not yet here.’ She turned her head to face the dog couple, who were sitting with their arms around each other, looking awed and overwhelmed.

‘She went to make the final part of the magic,’ said the bitch-woman, in a voice that was higher and sharper than Blackbriar’s.

Gerald, who had been stunned into silence through the noise and terror of battle, broke down and began to wail.

‘Should we go help her?’ asked Josie. ‘Where has she gone? We had not heard anything of another part of the magic.’

The bitch-woman looked from side to side, as if uncertain which question to answer first. ‘I am sorry, Lady Josie,’ she said, drooping her head. ‘She went to the Hollow. It may be you can help here there.’

‘You should go,’ said Josie to Prince Margis. She turned toward her husband. ‘With Tash. He can show you the way. I will go back with Gerald.’

‘It is perhaps not wise to divide our forces, but these people need to be kept safe,’ advised Jardil. ‘So there may be no choice. Is it far to this hollow, Lady Josie?’

‘It is about three miles west,’ said Josie.

Jardil nodded. ‘I had rather you had more men at your side, my Prince. But you and Tash are the two strongest warriors among us, and if any two may win through, it will be the two of you.’

‘I do not think our enemies will be overeager to attack us again, at any rate,’ said Prince Margis. ‘They are leaderless, and we have caused them grievous hurt.’

‘I hope you are right, my Lord,’ said Jardil. ‘Lady Josie, if you will come with me?’

‘Be careful, dear Tash,’ said Josie, making a hurried farewell. ‘Take the Prince by the best way to the Hollow.’

‘Yes, my Josie,’ said Tash. He strode into the shadowed forest, the Prince of Calormen following close behind. Jaridl and Josie led the rest of the party up into the castle, leaving food and furniture behind. Only one damask tablecloth of all the things that had been set out for the feast was brought back, for they had wrapped the body of Eyit in it.


	32. Deep Magic from the Dawn of Time

Tash and Prince Margis walked in silence for long minutes through the forest, listening for any change in the texture of sounds of the vale by night. The sounds made by their companions had died away, and amid the calls of the night birds and the wind in the cypresses, the sounds made by other beasts were faint and infrequent. Tash thought the beasts that had fought them were keeping their distance: but he had no way of knowing how long they would stay cowed. For all he knew, they might decide on another rash attack at any moment. It was not like they were mere mindless beasts. Their doings were as inscrutable to Tash as the doings of any other thinking beings.

A small part of Tash told him how easy it would be to be rid of Prince Margis forever. He could slay him here, in the deeps of the forest, where his body would never be found, and say that the beasts had come upon them: then the men would leave. He pushed the thoughts aside. What would Josie think of him, if he were to do such a thing?

Prince Margis walked behind Tash, taking three quick steps for every two strides of the thalarka.

‘Can you think of any good reason Blackbriar would go this way, Lord Tash?’ he asked in a soft voice. Like Tash, he had judged that their enemies were giving them a wide berth for the moment.

‘I don’t know,’ admitted Tash. ‘It would be a good place to hide for an animal her size. But I don’t know why she would hide, instead of joining us.’

The Hollow was up against the hills on the western side of the Vale of Telmar, opposite the castle, a place where a few acres of ground had given way and fallen into a cave underground some time in the distant past. It was a tumbled mass of stones each as big as a deer or a house, overgrown with brambles, and lying everywhere at least a Tash-length below the level of the surrounding countryside. Tash and Josie had only been there a few times, because it had an evil feel to it, and the smell of the stagnant water that pooled beneath the stones in some places was foul from animals that had fallen into it and died. The Hollow had been the place where the masters of Telmar who were gone and not mourned had thrown their rubbish: broken plates and spoiled mutton and mangled husks of juiced fruit, and also the bodies of the children they killed in their efforts to live forever. That was where the bones of Nera lay, though Tash did not know it.

‘Maybe there is a hermit pig, or a hermit dog, who dwells out here, who was not part of the pack, and she thought they might come to the feast,’ suggested Margis. ‘But then, if they did not join her, why would she not come back? I am worried for her.’

Tash did not know what to feel. He was being swept along by events greater than he was, as he had been since his adventure began. The magic burned in his bones, brighter and stronger than ever before since the battle at the feast, and while he still blamed Blackbriar for stirring up all this trouble, the more sensible part of him felt that she was just as much a victim blown hither and tither by Aslan’s schemes as he was.

‘I am worried for her, too,’ he said, and found as he said it that he meant it. He walked on a little more swiftly, so that Prince Margis had to break into a jog to keep up with him.

The wind was coming from the west, so Tash smelled the blood first, even before the sky opened up before them. He loped forward the last few dozen paces to the edge of the hollow. The sky above them was cloudless, and blazed with stars. Red Tarva, Lord of Victory, was high in the sky, shining down on them like the eye of the Overlord. On a flat stone a little larger than Tash, poised at the edge of the hollow, lay the body of a dog. Tash knew who it was while it was still nothing more than a pool of dark shadow. She had been torn open from throat to groin, like Tash had torn the boar, and her entrails were spread out across the stone in a horrible bloody mass. Her head was turned upward, lifeless eyes looking upward.

‘No!’ howled Tash. He thought the same thing he had thought when he first saw the broken body of Nera. ‘This is not how it is supposed to be,’ he said. ‘This is not what should have happened.’

‘Indeed not,’ said Prince Margis grimly. He knelt down by the side of Blackbriar’s body, and murmured a blessing. ‘The Lion’s peace go with you, dear friend.’

‘What peace?’ said Tash. ‘She trusted him. She came here to do what he said.’ He cast his head back and forth, looking across the tumbled landscape of the Hollow and back into the forest, hoping to see some enemy that he could tear into pieces. But there was no-one.

‘She has been dead at least an hour,’ said Prince Margis, straightening up. ‘Her killers are long gone. Maybe we have slain them already.’

‘It is not fair,’ said Tash. ‘She trusted the Lion.’

‘No,’ said Prince Margis. ‘It is not fair. But very little is. She came back to Telmar to do a good thing, and she has done it. Poor Onyx. Poor Blackbriar.’ He shook his head. ‘We cannot help her. We should return.’ He looked out over the maze that was the Hollow, to the dark mass of hills beyond. ‘I wonder why she came here.’

‘She looks like she has been sacrificed,’ said Tash. He was still angry, but his loud initial rage was subsiding into a deeper bitterness. ‘Sacrificed, to the greater glory of the Lion.’

‘He is not a tame Lion,’ said Prince Margis. ‘But no, I don’t think it is that.’ Decisively, he put the death of Blackbriar behind him, as he had put the death of Eyit behind him earlier that evening. ‘Let us look around; perhaps there is some clue here to what happened.’

There were pawprints aplenty, where the ground was not stone, or covered with dry leaves – enough for a dozen dogs – but neither Tash nor Prince Margis could read any story in them. After a few minutes of fruitless searching in the darkness it was obvious that there was nothing they could learn.

‘We should not leave her,’ said Prince Margis. He gathered up the broken ruin that had been Blackbriar in his arms. Clad in the golden magical armour that Aslan had left for him, he began slowly walking back to the castle, Tash now walking a pace behind him.

‘We cannot let Gerald see her,’ said Tash. ‘He is fond of her.’

‘Of course,’ said Prince Margis.

Prince Margis bore the body of Blackbriar back to the feasting glade, and Tash tore a hole in the earth for it, and afterwards turned a heavy table on top of it.

‘We can build a cairn over her later,’ said Prince Margis.

***

Josie was standing waiting for them at the top of the stairs, with one hand on Mirilitha’s back, and Ofrak perched on her shoulder, like a figure of a goddess on a coin. Her face was set and without expression. The wardrobes and chests of the Sorceror had been ransacked for clothes to fit the beasts who were men until morning, and the sow-woman stood now on one side of Josie, and the red-bearded boar man on the other side, with the others ranged awkwardly behind her.

‘Blackbriar is dead,’ said Josie, before Prince Margis or Tash had a chance to say anything.

‘Yes,’ said Tash. ‘I fear so,’ said Prince Margis at the same time.

‘Cinder admitted it,’ said Josie.

‘Did she kill her?’ asked Tash. He looked at the tear-streaked faces of the beasts, trying to tell which one was the dog-woman who had spoken to Josie after the battle.

‘No.’ Josie shook her head. ‘It was the last part of the magic. The beasts of Telmar could only be restored if one of them sacrificed themselves for the others. Let themselves be killed. So Blackbriar let herself be killed.’ She wiped her nose with the back of her hand.

‘We did not want her to go,’ said the dark-haired woman who was Cinder, timidly. ‘We told her she did not have to. But she said we did not understand, and that it was the deep magic from the dawn of time. She said Aslan told her.’

‘I still do not understand,’ said the man by Cinder’s side.

‘Of course not,’ said Tash, looking angrily through them. ‘No one can understand. It is all madness. They are all the same, the Overlords of worlds.’

‘We cannot know what the Lion knows,’ said Prince Margis mildly. ‘Perhaps he saw that this was the only way, and all others were worse. It is a sad business,’ he continued. ‘We have lost good men and beasts tonight. But we have – if it is the will of the Emperor over the Sea – restored these men- these beasts- of Telmar.’ He nodded to the gathered men and women who had been pigs and dogs. ‘And it is the doing of Blackbriar. We should honour her memory, and the memory of the others who have fallen.’

‘It is all of your doing,’ said the sow-woman, going down on her knees before the Prince. ‘We do not deserve it.’

‘Perhaps not,’ said Prince Margis, lifting her back to her feet. ‘But many times I have been done a kindness I did not deserve, so it is just that I repay the favour.’

‘We should slay them all,’ said Tash. ‘All the beasts who did this, so none remain.’

‘No,’ said Josie. ‘They are not all evil. Some are led astray: and some are too young, or too old. And all are the kindred of these,’ she waved to indicate the beasts around her.

‘What will happen to them, then?’ said Tash.

The owl, usually reticent to speak in the presence of humans, piped up first. ‘They will sink deeper and deeper into being mere beasts, now that the ones who remembered the stories of what they were are gone,’ said Ofrak. ‘Until they are truly no different from any other dumb beast.’ He bowed his head.

‘And what about them?’ said Tash, gesturing to the newly-restored talking beasts. ‘When they are beasts again, how will they live among their families who hate them?’

‘They will come with us,’ said Prince Margis, with a regal solemnity that even Tash could feel, and that instilled all the talking beasts with awe. ‘To Calormen.’

‘Yes,’ said Josie, nodding in agreement. ‘To Calormen.’

‘Then we are going?’ Tash asked.

Josie laid a hand on one of his arms. ‘I think we must, dear Tash. Dearest Tash.’


	33. Farewell to Telmar

Tash could not understand why the leaders of the beasts had attacked so fiercely, instead of just letting those who wanted to eat the magic food eat it: people always seemed to want to interfere with what other people were doing, whether they were thalarka or humans or talking animals or gods. Tash did not ask Josie why she had decided that they must leave, nor did he try to argue her out of it. It had been clear all along that what Jardil had said was true: that the place of Josie and Gerald was with the other humans. It was also true that it would be much harder for the three of them to live alone in Telmar from now on, after their actions had stirred the beasts of the Vale to such violence. Leaving was a wise thing to do: this was a precise statement of indisputable fact. But he hated it. Telmar had become his home: the only true home he had ever had. Here Josie was his, and Gerald was his too: but outside they would slip away from him, further and further, and he would be left with no one. This too he knew to be a precise statement of indisputable fact. He did not know whether it would be swiftly or slowly, but he knew it was coming, as sure as a break in the clouds would close again.

‘We have to go, Tash,’ said Josie later that night, clutching one of his hands. ‘I’m sorry.’

No, he wanted to say. No, never, we must stay here. But he did not say anything.

‘I am so sorry about Blackbriar,’ said Josie.

‘It was not meant to be like this,’ said Tash.

‘I’m afraid it was,’ said Josie, and began to cry. Tash wrapped his arms around her.

‘Don’t worry, my Josie,’ said Tash. ‘It will be alright. You are my Josie, Lady Josie of Telmar, whatever happens.’

Josie silently drew close to Tash, and pressed her cheek against his chest, and in a little while they joined together as wife and husband for the last time.

They buried Eyit in the morning, in the garden where Tash had been a statue, in the very place where the panther or leopard or whatever it was had stood frozen in stone for so many years. Next to him they buried Longface, the boar who had died in the battle fighting on the side of Aslan. The sow-women picked flowers until the bushes were quite bare, and strewed them over both graves like a blanket.

‘We will never forget those who died so that we might speak,’ said Primrose, the sow-woman who had done most of the talking for the pigs since their transformation.

The rest of the day was spent in making preparations. Josie put away all the things of the men of Telmar that they could not take with them, to stop them as much as possible from being ruined by the weather. ‘Though I don’t suppose it matters, if no one comes back her for years and years and years,’ she said. Many of the more precious things she had taken down into the secret chamber. There the magic was beginning to fade: she could tell at once.

‘It is not going all at once, but it is going,’ she said. ‘Can you feel it, Tash?’

‘A lot,’ said Tash. The bubble of preserving magic left long ago by Aslan had done what it was needed for, and now it was trickling away, swift enough for him to feel the current of its passing.

‘What will we do with the apples?’ Josie asked Tash, for only the two of them were there in the secret room. But she still spoke in a soft voice, hardly more than a whisper. ‘Shall we leave them here, or take them with us?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Tash. ‘If we take them, someone will find out about it in the end.’

‘Yes,’ said Josie. ‘Who knows what will happen? There may be other sorcerors who want them. But they may be gone before then – we could help other people with them.’

‘But not very many,’ pointed out Tash. There were only two of the apples left, not enough to bring more than a handful of injured or sick people back from the brink. ‘How would we pick?’

‘Well, if Gerald was hurt,’ said Josie.

‘Of course.’ But they both knew that the apple would not let Gerald live forever, since he had not come into the world from another. One day he would grow old and withered and die, and they would still go on and on, if nothing happened to them. But both of them tried rather a lot not to think too much about the future.

‘Would it make Gerald strong and healthy, if we gave it to him now?’ asked Tash. ‘When he is not sick?’

‘I think so,’ said Josie. ‘I could feel it work on me, even though I was not injured.’

‘Maybe we should do that,’ said Tash.

‘Maybe,’ said Josie, and they stood silently together for a long time in the cool of the secret room, listening to the silence. ‘I will take them,’ said Josie at last. ‘I don’t think they will stay fresh very much longer, now that the magic is fading. So they will just rot away down there. Don’t worry, dear Tash, I will watch over them carefully.’

***

The next morning, when the transformed beasts of Telmar had regained their proper forms, and were talking beasts of Telmar, they raised a cairn over the place where Blackbriar was buried and set out from the Vale of Telmar. Prince Margis and his four men; Josie and Tash and Gerald; and the talking beasts: Mirilitha and Ofrak, the dogs Cinder and Larkwail, and the five pigs: Primrose, Cabbageheart, Hyacinth and Oakenfoot together, with the ruddy one, Loudrain, walking as near to Josie as he dared. They were all on foot (or hoof, or wing), with the men leading their horses, on the carpet of dry leaves beneath the ancient dark cypresses. The Calormenes, men and beasts, were only too glad to leave: and for Gerald it was simply a grand adventure. But for the others, the leavetaking was tinged with bitterness.

‘You will miss the forest, too,’ said Primrose to Tash. She snuffled behind him at the back of the party, without the fear that the other talking beasts of Telmar showed when Tash drew near.

‘Yes,’ said Tash. ‘I have been happy here. That is the way to my fishing hole, over there.’

‘We call that Agate’s pond,’ said Primrose. ‘Agate was a sow who lived in my grandmother’s time. She liked to wander off from the others, and sun herself by the water there.’

‘Josie is fond of fish,’ said Tash. He looked ahead, and felt an anger that he tried hard to quash. He had handed Gerald to his mother before he dropped back to the end of the party; and so he could not really protest now that Josie had passed the boy on to Prince Margis. Now Gerald was riding on the royal shoulders with great cheerfulness.

‘We cannot catch fish,’ said Primrose unnecessarily. ‘And the ones we find dead are not nice to eat.’

‘Yes,’ said Tash, without really listening, still looking at his son riding on the Prince’s shoulders.

‘I am sure there are many good things beyond the valley,’ said Primrose wistfully after a moment.

‘Yes,’ said Tash. He remembered the last journey he had made along this path, and the feel of his talons cutting through flesh; the taste of the apple of living forever, and the sour smell of desperate hopelessness that had clung to Josie for so long a time after they returned. ‘All the places that lie beyond that I have seen are very nice.’

As for Josie, she too was sunk in dark thoughts for as long as they walked under the cypresses. She had given up fighting, she felt. Instead of willfully trying to do things her own way, and resenting the injustice of all that had happened to her, she had resolved to carry through with what Aslan had proposed for her to do. She felt mostly a horrible guilt that everything might have turned out better for everyone, if she had done what Aslan had wanted her and Tash to do in the first place. Then Blackbriar might be alive, and the others who had died might be alive, and-

‘What’s done is done, silly girl,’ she told herself. ‘You can’t very well wish that Gerald wasn’t there,’ she thought, smiling at the thought of the laughing boy despite her dark thoughts. Yet – she still did wish that Gerald wasn’t there, with a small part of herself that was the same as the small part of Tash that had thought of biting through Prince Margis’ throat.

Josie went on in this way feeling guilty and miserable until she could smell the fragrant woods that lay beyond the Vale of Telmar, and feel the warm breeze from the south. Then it was as if she had walked out of a dark room into the sunlight; she felt happier than she had for a long time, and not in the least guilty or miserable. I have learned that these are the times when it is most important to be very careful and think through what you are doing, or you are liable to make terrible mistakes.

‘I am so happy that you have come with us,’ said Mirilitha to Josie. ‘The gazelles will be so happy to see you, though you were with them such a little time.’

‘I will be happy to see them, too,’ said Josie. ‘I would love to hear them sing again, all together.’

And memories of when the world had been unexpected and beautiful and new flooded back to her, and it was as if the world was like that all over again.

During this journey Loudrain did not walk close beside Josie all the time, but scouted about her as if he alone could guard her from danger. He ran ahead to check the path for places where her feet might trip, and took care to be standing there when she got to those places; and he darted into the bushes to either side, sniffing out the spoor of any beasts that might be troublesome. The other pigs studiously ignored him.

‘You don’t need to do that,’ Josie told her self-appointed new protector. ‘You will tire yourself out.’

Loudrain snorted in a way that would have been very obnoxious indeed if he had been a man, instead of a talking boar. ‘I want to do what I can,’ he explained, looking as crestfallen as it is possible for a pig to look. ‘But I will do what you say, Lady Josie.’

‘It’s alright,’ she told Loudrain, reaching out to pat him. ‘You can go ahead. But if you do get tired, you must stop and walk alongside us.’

Josie and Tash hardly spoke two words to one another that morning; but neither did they speak with Prince Margis and the other men, walking along speaking only with the talking animals. Down the tumbled slope they went into the valleys below, which were not so thickly shadowed over with cypresses, and they came now and again through sunny meadows thronging with flowers. The new air made Josie feel alive, but every step also made her feel like she was becoming someone else: each step further from Telmar made her less Josie, Mistress of Telmar, and more somebody else, and she did not know who that person was. In one of the meadows they stopped to eat a meal, and Gerald excitedly explored the strange new place. Mirilitha trotted along beside him, having assigned herself the job of his nanny for the duration, while Tash hung further back, guarding him from afar.

‘Mother! Feel this!’ cried Gerald, running up to her with a flower he had found. Josie felt the soft petals of the flower, and pressed it to her face. ‘That is not a kind we had in Telmar,’ she told him. ‘It smells a little like something I remember, from when I was a little girl, but I can’t remember the name.’ It had been in the very first garden she could remember, before they moved out to Moora, and she moved through her fragmentary pieces of memory of that time with wonder and trepidation. These flowers had not been blooming before, the last time she had been here.

‘Shall I get more?’ asked Gerald.

‘Yes please, my dear,’ said Josie. A few minutes later found her sitting with a lap full of flowers, feeling unaccountably happy.

Tash looked at her from the edge of the meadow – she was sitting alone in a patch of sunlight in the middle of it – and thought of how much he could not bear to be parted from her, and familar seethings of lust and magic stirred in his blood. If he had been a man, he would have seen how Prince Margis looked at her as well, and he would have narrowed his eyes and resolved to stick close to Josie, and keep Prince Margis at bay: but he was a strange creature from another world, the last of his kind, and he had no great skill at reading the faces of men and women.

‘Lord Tash,’ called Jardil, from the edge of the meadow where the men of Calormen were sitting together. ‘Will you have something to eat?’ He held aloft a loaf of what Tash recognised as his own bread, the bread that Josie had made in the castle of Telmar.

‘No,’ he said, and something dark moved inside him, like a cloud blocking out the stars.

***

At sunset they came to a place above a bend in a stream, where a great tree falling over some winters ago had made a clearing. The edges of this were tangled with briars and wild roses, and damp underfoot, but a broad sandy space in the middle was clear, and here they made their camp.

‘We should sleep apart,’ Josie said, when Tash came up to her in the gloom. ‘Not far apart, but.’ Tash let his arms droop a little, and bowed his head a little – not in the same way he had been used to do when he was young and useless – and they set their bedrolls a little distant separate, with Gerald between them.

The Calormenes spoke together cheerfully enough – for they were going home – and treated Josie still as Mistress of Telmar, bringing her whatever she wanted as if she were a high-born lady of Calormen. The beasts did the same, as if they were her servants; and especially they watched over Gerald, and sought to amuse him, and cheer him up when he grew tired and cranky.

So Tash found himself useless again, but in a way he had never been useless before: he was useless because there was nothing for him to do.

A long time after the camp had fallen silent, Tash could hear Josie lying on the other side of Gerald, breathing as if she were awake. He had become very good at telling whether she was awake or not in the time they had been together. Besides Josie and himself, Tash was certain that only Ofrak was awake; but the bird had no need to sit by the fire and warm his hands. He was high in the trees, or above the trees, now here and now there, a finer guard by night than any human could ever be. Tash shuffled out of his blankets and over to Josie’s side, staying hunched over instead of standing all the way up, half-crawling like he was some kind of six-legged creature. He could not have said why he walked this way, any more than he could have explained why he suddenly needed to talk to Josie. He plucked at Josie’s shoulder through her blanket, and she rolled over to face him.

‘What is it, Tash?’ she asked. He could hear the distance in her voice, the brittleness that had been growing by slow degrees ever since they had turned their back on Blackbriar long ago and headed back to Telmar – the brittleness that had grown so much more swiftly since Ofrak had batted at their window, that was now like a shell hiding Josie from him.

‘I don’t know,’ said Tash.

‘We can’t talk here,’ said Josie softly. ‘Let’s- let’s go for a walk.’ She held out a hand and Tash helped her to her feet, and they walked slowly hand in hand to an edge of the clearing and then a little further, into the maze of briars beyond, trying to be as silent as possible. The night insects helped: they were loud, much louder than they ever were in Telmar, and the chatter of the stream over the stones in the ravine below helped too. They were not far from the camp, but these noises meant they could do anything short of shout without waking the others. Josie’s hand trembled in Tash’s hand as they walked along, and it seemd to Tash as if her heart was beating much too swiftly, like the heart of some frightened small animal.

Under the thickets the leaf mould had a thick decayed odour, which mingled with the scent of the wild roses. And the moon was full: so to Tash the whole scene was as if painted in silver paint.

Josie let go of Tash and took a half step away from him, moving slowly and carefully so as not to catch herself on the briars.

‘I’m so sorry, dear Tash,’ said Josie.

‘What have you done?’ asked Tash. He was angry – still angry – but not at Josie. He was angry at everything else that was spoiling this world, where for a time things had been going so well for him.

‘Things I shouldn’t have done,’ said Josie. ‘Things we shouldn’t have done, Tash. I always knew it was wrong. But I did it anyways. It wasn’t fair on you, because you didn’t understand – you couldn’t. You aren’t a man, you don’t come from my world. But I did understand, and I shouldn’t – I shouldn’t.’

She spoke these disconnected fragments quickly and clearly and if she were trying not to cry, as if she were making a report to a policeman.

‘We can’t be betrothed, Tash. We can’t be married. It’s not right.’

Tash looked at Josie’s face, dry in the moonlight, the sadness in it making it more like the face of poor dead Nera, and he thought how much he loved her.

‘We are married,’ said Tash, slowly. ‘It is done.’

Josie shook her head violently. ‘No,’ she said. ‘We aren’t really. It is not allowed.’

‘Maybe it is not allowed on your world,’ said Tash, still slowly and calmly. ‘But you said once, maybe in this one-‘

Josie cut him off. ‘Bother what I said. I was wrong. I was very wrong. Very, very wrong. I shouldn’t have done it. I wanted you, so I did it, knowing I shouldn’t. It was unfair to you.’

‘I wanted you to,’ said Tash.

‘You don’t understand,’ said Josie, raising her voice a little for the first time.

‘I know,’ said Tash. And he would have let his arms droop and bowed his head, even a few days before, but he had been growing brittle inside at the same time as Josie had been growing brittle outside, and he stood up straight.

‘You don’t know,’ said Josie, and the bitterness in her voice was like the dark spaces between the stars. She began to make her way further on through the thicket, parallel to the stream; away from the camp, not towards it.

‘Why should it not be allowed?’ growled Tash, following her. ‘Who said it should be forbidden?’

Then he saw the Lion. It was washing its paws on the other side of the stream.

‘No,’ he cried, and forged ahead of Josie, crashing heedlessly through the bushes and sending stones flying from under his feet. ‘Don’t take her away! Don’t!’

‘What are you doing?’ called Josie, who had nearly been knocked over as Tash ran by. ‘Tash! Tash!’

Tash did not heed her, but crashed on down the slope, until he fell more than stepped into the stream. His foot slipped on a stone, and he crashed over sideways into the cold water.

He raised his head. The lion was standing on a rock in the middle of the stream, looking down at him. Josie was still calling him; but her voice was faint and it was impossible to tell what she was saying, as if she was much further away than she could possibly be. It was as if he had fallen into a well of silence.

The Lion said no word to Tash, but he did not have to. His meaning was clearer than any words Tash had ever heard. Follow me, his face was saying. This is not your story anymore, the Lion was saying. But there is still time to chose the way I wish you to chose, to take the path without Josie in which you are a forgotten hero. Cross the stream, and leave Josie forever, and follow me. Tash knew all this in an instant, looking up at the face of Aslan, and in an instant he rejected it.

‘No,’ said Tash. ‘Why should you decide?’ He picked himself out of the water. The magic of the apple burned bright in his bones- the apple stolen, but not by him; the apple given him by Josie- and he was angry; angrier than he had ever been before. He launched himself at the Lion with an inarticulate howl of rage.

Aslan batted Tash aside with a single great velvetted paw, and set him sprawling over the pebbled bed of the stream again. When Tash stood up Aslan was gone, and the sounds of the forest had come flooding back.

***

Josie did not know how she could have done anything else. It was hard on Tash. She had become a cruel woman, she knew, and whichever way she turned she burned with guilt. She believed what she had said to Tash, that she had done wrong before, but she also knew that she was doing wrong now. There is no perfect path through life, she thought , bitter at the unfairness of it. There was no broad road of flowers and cool breezes that you could safely walk along without hurting anyone. All choices were bad: some were just worse than others.

Josie held on tight to Gerald – Gerald, who had been distraught at the noise and the sudden disappearance of his parents, and was snuffling softly into her shoulder. She rocked him back and forth. ‘No, the bad dogs and the bad pigs have not come back,’ she said. ‘It’s alright. It’s alright, Gerry.’ And she kept on rocking him back and forth and telling him lies while Prince Margis and his men returned with Tash, and while Tash had a snarling one-sided quarrel with the Prince.

‘Why did you run off like that?’ Josie asked Tash when he approached, smelling of cold wet feathers. She could feel the closeness of him as he loomed over her, like the wall of the secret garden in Telmar. Gerald sniffed, and sniffed again, and had time to gulp a breath of air before sniffing again, all the while looking up at the creature he called father.

‘The lion,’ said Tash. ‘I saw the lion. This is his doing.’

‘Maybe,’ said Josie. That is what the people who belong in this world would certainly say, she said to herself. Everything that happens here happens because Aslan wills it to.

‘I saw him,’ said Tash. ‘He wants me to go away.’

She should not have picked tonight to tell Tash, she told herself. She should have waited longer, until a better time. But was any time better than any other? It had all become so tangled and uncomfortable.

‘You don’t have to go away,’ said Josie. But her voice did not sound very convincing to her own ears. Tash did not seem to notice.

‘Can I have Gerald?’ he asked.

‘I don’t think you have quite calmed down,’ said Josie. But Gerald stretched out his arms and wriggled and said ‘Daddy.’

‘In a little while,’ said Josie, sharply.

‘Daddy!’ called the boy, and wriggled in Josie’s arms with a great wriggling.

‘Bother the child,’ grumbled Josie. ‘Here, then. But stay close.’

‘Yes, Josie,’ said Tash. His voice was again infuriatingly obedient, and she passed the boy up to him.

‘Stay close,’ said Josie again. ‘And he has to go back to sleep, so don’t get him all excited.’

‘Yes, my Josie,’ said Tash, and took Gerald- still moistly snuffling through the last of his unhappiness –away toward the other side of the campfire.

Josie made her way back to her sleeping place, slow and careful so as not to trip or get lost in the unfamiliar surroundings. She was almost there when she heard someone following her.

‘Prince Margis?’ she said, without turning around.

‘Lady Josie.’ He took a few steps nearerer, and she could smell him clearly. Fresh sweat from the sudden scramble down the ravine after Tash’s cries, but mostly the old sweat that clung to his clothes after the day’s walk, and the perfumed oil that he had taken to wearing in Telmar to replace the stock he had exhausted during his journey. It was one that reminded Josie of Zardeenah, rather than Yustus.

‘I am fine,’ she told him. ‘We were just speaking.’

‘I am glad to hear it, my Lady,’ said Margis, stepping closer to Josie. ‘He said he saw the Lion.’

‘I did not hear anything,’ said Josie. ‘If he was there, he was very quiet. And he did not stick around to say anything. I expect it was a lion, rather than the Lion.’

‘I have never heard of one so far north,’ said Margis. ‘But perhaps.’ He paused a little while, and Josie could hear leaves crunching under his feet as he shifted them about. ‘It pains me to see you upset, my Lady. Is there any that I can do?’

‘No,’ said Josie. ‘Nothing that will help. My problem is of my own making, and it is up to me to sort it out.’

‘You are weeping,’ said Margis softly. He reached out a hand and dabbed away a tear from Josie’s cheek. Once again, as had happened when they were at the stream, and before, at the banquetting hall, something like an electric shock ran through Josie. The ancient magic stirred in her blood; and the yet more ancient magic, that goes back to the primordial slime a billion years before men.

‘I will be alright,’ she said. ‘I should not cry. I am stronger than that.’

‘You are strong indeed,’ said Margis. He tooked her hand between his two hands and held it close to his chest, and she did not pull away. Big long-fingered hands he had, leathery without being over-calloused, and her hand was folded completely away inside them. ‘You will do great things in Calormen, Josie. You have done great things already in this world; but you have only just begun.’


	34. A Broken Promise

They were camped by the water-hole where Shoab son of Amidanab had planted the apricot tree. The little tree had grown wild and straggly since Josie had seen it before, and though she kept an eye out for the hedgehog’s home she could not remember exactly where it had been, and saw no sign of it. Perhaps the hermit had died, or perhaps the country had just grown too busy for him and he had moved away. It had been an uncomfortable journey. The memories of all this country- on their outward journey with Blackbriar, and then on their return – were sour with lost happiness, or unendurable with hurt and shame.

Tash’s memories were just as painful, for the same reasons. He too had tried and failed to spot the house of Shoab son of Amidanab as they journeyed. During the journey he had shunned the company of both men and talking beasts. The beasts understood that men should keep the company of men; and the men understood that beasts should keep the company of their own kind. He was neither: and neither could understand how it was between him and Josie and Gerald. They were his people; they had given his life usefulness. The anger swelled and seethed inside him like the futile waves of an ocean, and Josie’s refusal to let him touch her as he had before made it three times worse. In his calmer moments Tash reassured himself that at least no-one was trying to sacrifice him to anyone, and that he was for all practical purposes immortal, if what the sorceror had said could be believed. So by the standards of the world of the thalarka he was immeasurably blessed, and had nothing to be unhappy about; but in the new world he required different things to be happy. He was not the Tash he had been.

While the others rested at the end of the day – the Calormenes laughing as they prepared the cooking fire, the talking pigs noisily playing some game among themselves – Tash stomped off into the open woodland around the water hole, pounding shrubs into broken pieces beneath his feet and uprooting saplings in a heedless unfocussed violence. He could not see any way out. He had reached the place that comes at least once in every life, where there is nothing that can be done but to endure, and he found it as hard as we all do. Josie would not listen to him. Josie would barely talk to him. Josie would not touch him. And they had not yet come to the land of the men. What would happen when they came properly to the land of Calormen, where he was a monster? His thoughts went around and around, and found no resting place, like slaves chained to a wheel.

A rabbit that was passing by on the eastern side of Tash saw him striding furiously along the crest of a rise, silhoutted against the golden sky of sunset. She ran off to tell her brothers and sisters of the terrible thing that stalked the land: but she had given much the same warning too many times before, so they paid her no mind.

‘Would you walk with me a while?’ Margis had asked Josie, and she had set yes. She had brought Gerald along to walk as well as he could on his plump little legs. Unlike the rest of them, he had been carried all day, being too slow to walk while proper travelling was going on.

Josie wanted mostly to get out of being in a crowd of people, she told herself. She was used to a much more solitary kind of life than she had had on this journey. After a long day of travelling Josie was happy enough to stick to her son’s pace, and merely wander slowly up the gentle rise beyond the water hole to a little circle of old trees. Here the air was not as still as it was by the water hole, and a breeze brought stories of what lay in the lands beyond: a hint of smoke, and aromatic leaves something like camphor, and the distinctive smell of air that has been baked over hot stones and then let cool. Gerald squatted down to play with some dry branches. He had been more quiet on this trip than Josie was used to- no doubt because he was taking so many new things in, she thought. When he did speak, it was usually to misbehave. Tash had always spoiled him dreadfully, she thought, and now both the men and the beasts were doing the same.

‘You can play there, Gerry,’ said Josie. ‘Don’t go away.’

‘I will watch him,’ promised Margis.

Josie shuffled a few steps away from Gerald and reached out to feel the bark of one of the trees.

‘They are something like olive trees, but not quite the same,’ said Margis. ‘I have journeyed much, but I am not learned in tree lore.’

‘They seem like they have been planted here on purpose,’ said Josie, slowly making her way around the circle from one tree to the next.

‘Come, sit down a moment,’ said Margis. He helped Josie to sit down on the stump that occupied the single gap in the circle, where one of the broad-boled trees had been felled many years before. His hands on her arms were reassuring and comfortable. He sat down next to her, and she was acutely aware of exactly where he was, and what he was.

‘Life is all so complicated,’ she sighed. ‘I don’t seem to have gotten any of it right.’ From the direction of the camp, a horse nickered in apparent agreement.

‘It does not have to be complicated,’ said Margis, and kissed her cheek. When she did not protest, he turned her head gently aside and kissed her on the lips. She felt a rush of blood go to her ears, and was suddenly intensely aware of every part of her body.The feeling of Margis’ lips on her skin – that had not felt any lips save Gerald’s for so many years – was almost unendurably sweet.

‘You should not do that,’ she scolded him.

‘Ah, I have loved you since I met you, Josie,’ said the crown prince of Calormen. ‘I cannot bear to hear you speak ill of youself, when I know that next to you I am nothing but an unworthy worm.’

‘You aren’t an unworthy worm, and I don’t believe you think you are, either,’ said Josie, wriggling away to open a handsbreadth of open space between herself and Margis. ‘You are just saying that so I will tell you are not.’

‘No,’ said Margis, laying his hand back on Josie’s forearm. She did not move it away. ‘I am saying whatever nonsense comes into my had, to get you to stop being sunk in sadness, because you are too fine and brave and glorious to be sad, and I will say and do anything I can to stop you from being sad.’ He kissed her again, harder this time; Josie could feel the moistness of his mouth, and taste his humanness. His smell filled her nostrils, and the touch of his hands on her skin was like the first cool breeze after a stinking hot day.

‘You must not,’ protested Josie, without moving. ‘I am-‘ she was not sure what she was. ‘I- ‘ She had made a promise; but is was not right for her to make such a promise. It had been a mistake. She had told Tash as mch, at the beginning of this journey. ‘You are very foolish,’ she told Margis.

‘Anyone would be a fool for you, Lady Josie,’ said Margis, stroking her cheek.

‘Bunny,’ said Gerald. He scampered over to a place on the edge of the circle of trees to wave a branch that was not an olive branch at the rabbit that crouched there watching him with unaccustomed bravery – or perhaps it was only a stone. Josie could not see, and Margis was not watching.

‘That’s nice, Gerry,’ said Josie, and then Margis kissed her again, more hungrily than before, and hugged her close to him. It was so marvellous to be pressed up against him, Josie felt, and so wrong, she thought. She pushed all the thoughts of how wrong it was angrily away and responded to Margis’ kisses with equal hunger. The Prince’s hands moved over her shoulders, her neck, her thighs; one settled on a breast, which he held gently but resolutely, as if it were some small animal that he had just rescued from a cat. Wherever Margis touched her, she became more gloriously awake.The ancient magic hummed in her bones, and the yet more ancient magic. She felt like an instrument on which the eternal song of life was being played.

‘Daddy!’ said Gerald cheerfully. ‘Come see the bunny.’

Josie pushed Margis away, her face burning with shame. Margis stood; and she stood a second afterward, and at that moment Tash strode into the centre of the circle of trees, like a ghost appearing at a party.

‘He is not your father, my little man,’ said Margis calmly, with a cruelty that was as terrible as Tash’s furious silence.

‘He is not your little man!’ cried Tash, in a voice that recalled a thousand generations of cruel thalarka priests and overseers. ‘And Josie is not yours either.’ He swung forward, body and four arms at once, and they would have come to blows then if the Prince has not quickly stepped out of the way. Tash loomed over the Prince, his arms twitching.

‘She is the Lady of Telmar,’ said Tash. ‘You cannot touch her.’

There was time for one breath, and Margis opened his mouth to speak.

‘He can if I let him,’ said Josie. Her voice trembled, but grew firmer as she went along. ‘I am sorry, Tash. You and I are not the same kind. What we had is over.’

‘Over,’ said Tash. ‘You promised.’ He stepped across to Josie, and Margis moved to put himself between him and her.

‘I should not have,’ said Josie. ‘I’m sorry.‘

‘Lady Josie belongs among her own kind,’ began Prince Margis.

‘It is your doing,’ said Tash, in a fury. ‘You and the Lion.’ He swiped Margis aside with one taloned arm. Prepared though he was, and skilled in the arts of war, Margis could do nothing to dodge or parry the blow, and was sent sprawling.

With an inarticulate cry, Josie scrambled to Margis, feeling her way on hands and knees. ‘Tash, no!’ She felt Margis’ face, and found he was still breathing, though he had been knocked out cold. His face was awash with blood from a cut along his cheekbone as long as Josie’s thumb. ‘Go and get help,’ she commanded Tash angrily. ‘You can’t go around hitting people like that.’

‘You can’t go around breaking promises,’ said Tash, more furious than Josie had ever known him. He kicked at the ground without noticing what he was doing, spraying Josie and Margis with dirt and fallen leaves.

‘Gerry! Run and get help!’ called Josie. Gerald had been hiding behind a tree since the shouting began, and now he pelted back toward the water hole at his mother’s words.

‘You cannot just break your promise,’ said Tash, grabbing Josie and dragging her away from Margis. He held her well off the ground with all four arms, as if displaying her for sacrifice in one of the temples of his own world.

‘Please, Tash – I’m-‘

‘Don’t say you are sorry again!’ said Tash, shaking Josie. His talons sank deeper into her shoulders and hips than he intended, drawing blood, and she cried out in pain. ‘I don’t want to hear that you are sorry!’ The bones in her shoulder cracked.

‘Tash- please- you are hurting me- dear Tash.’

‘Why can he touch you? Why can I not touch you? I have served you well, my Josie. I have served you well.’

‘I know I hurt you, but you are hurting me. Please- please stop it. Stop it. Please.’

Tash stomped around within the circle of trees like a wounded animal, seemingly without caring where he put his feet. Josie hoped he would not crush Prince Margis.

She tried her best to sound like the true Mistress of Telmar through her pain and fear and shame. ‘Put me down,’ she commanded, in a voice like stone.

Tash gave one more inhuman cry, horrible to hear, lifting Josie above his head. He snapped his great beak shut. An inch closer and he would have disembowelled his wife, but instead she felt herself descending – roughly, but not as roughly as she might have – to be left sprawled in the place where Gerald had seen the rabbit.

‘It is over,’ said Tash, in a dead voice that seemed to come from ten thousand miles away.

‘It is over,’ repeated Josie. Dirty and bruised and bleeding, she gathered herself together and sat up. At that moment the beating of wings sounded overhead. ‘My prince? Lady Josie? Are you in danger?’ came the voice of Ofrak.

‘You should go,’ said Josie to Tash, in a savage whisper.

‘It is over,’ said Tash again.

***

Tash looked down at his beloved Josie, disshevelled and bloody at his hands, and with horror he remembered reading in the Books of Tash how he would look down at his beloved Josie, disshevelled and bloody at his hands. An appalling sense of hopelessness swallowed him. His destiny had come for him. It had been irresistible; it had been inexorable; and now all that remained was to follow where it led him.

‘My Prince?’ called Ofrak, fluttering down at his master’s side. The voices of men and beasts and the hurrying sound of many feet approached.

Tash looked down at Josie for the last time.

‘Go,’ hissed Josie.

Tash left.


	35. The Hunting of the White Stag

This story set out to tell you about Tash and Josie and their story together. I had intended to go on to tell you how they came into each other’s stories afterward, when they were mostly only memories of Josie and memories of Tash to each other, but what happened afterward is mostly sad, and as bitter as soap, and there is a great deal of it. And if you have read anything before about Narnia you will also have a good idea of how it ends up, when all is said and done. So I will skip ahead to the end of Josie’s time in Calormen in two big steps, one, two, as if I were wearing seven league boots; and if there is anything more that needs to be said I can always come back and tell you about it some other time.

Tash was not there at the battle that last night. He was more than ten leagues distant from his army, in rocky hills south of the place that would one day be called Azim Balda, walking alone. A few times a year he would set out by himself, for the presence of others grew burdensome to him, and his temper short. Rather than grow angry, and kill someone he would regret killing later, it was his habit to leave his followers to look after themselves and spend a few long days and nights hunting in empty places, until his anger ebbed. Tonight red Tarva, Lord of Victory, was high in the sky, and a mere trickle of muddy water ran sluggishly over the rocks where a merry stream flowed in more pleasant seasons. Tash’s skin itched with a fierce intensity, as it had when he had first come to this world, for he had not stopped to wet it, but had followed the spoor of the white stag since just after dawn of the day before. He was close now: he could smell that it was weary. It would still give him a fight worth the trouble, more than any of the lesser beasts of prey in this part of the country, but it was growing too tired to run.

‘Very soon,’ he said to himself, and in that moment he felt almost happy.

The men who had gathered around Tash numbered in the hundreds now, and they were more than a mere band of raiders: they were the nucleus of a people, with their own customs and their own jargon. They went into battle calling Tash’s name, whether they had been robbers before, or fishermen, or half-ifrit children disowned by their fathers to beg on the streets.

After the fight at the circle of trees, Tash had wandered by himself in the wilderness for some years before he made up his mind to get Gerald back. He had needed allies at first to free Gerald, surrounded as his son was by so many thousands of men and beasts of Calormen: so he had gathered allies. First had been the brigand he had caught on the edge of the desert. This man had known Tash, for he was one of the band who had once captured Josie; and for this Tash had been going to tear out his bowels. But he had begged for mercy. ‘Great Tash,’ he said, ‘Glorious Tash,’ he had said. ‘Spare me, and I will serve you.’ His name was Lomar, and he had served Tash as he had promised, until the night three years ago when he had been killed in battle with King Margis’ men.

Yes, Tash had gathered the first of his followers himself: but he had not had to seek them out for a long time. Men had sought him out, ever since his first raid on Balan. Those who returned alive from that raid boasted of his strength, of how he could tell what his enemies would do before they did it, of how the spears of the king’s men had broken against his chest and left no mark, of how he had torn the vizier Jardil open from throat to groin with one swipe of his arm. They heard, too, tales of how it had been he, and not King Margis nor his witch, who had defeated the sorceror of Telmar and restored the power of speech to the beasts there; and they heard the tale of how he alone had defied the Lion. While there were many dwellers on the marches of Calormen who had always bridled at the presumption of the Kings at Balan, the name of Aslan was honoured in all those lands, and it might be wondered that defying him would bring any glory to Tash: but those who gathered under his banner resented Aslan for the same reason that Tash and Josie had. He was the one who allowed their lives to be miserable, or worse, made the rules that forced them into misery. He was a God who intervened in his creation: but not to help them, never to help them, for they were some of the many thousands of nameless sufferers whose names are recorded in no chronicles of Narnia. The followers of Tash were broken men and women of many kinds, though mostly human. Some thirsted for justice, and some did not care. There were good men among them, and vile ones. Tash had not meant to gather an army and a people on the wild marches of Calormen. They had built up around him like mud on boots, drawn by the power that they felt in him, and now they moved on inexorably whether he willed it or not, driven by the inscrutable logic of crowds. They had Gerald to lead them now, and Keziah, and Zarduk, and needed him only to cry out ‘Tash! Tash!’ when he came to them, and clang their weapons together to make a noise in his honour.

The white stag had gone this way, Tash was certain, up this narrow path to the summit of the stony hill, and there was no sign that it had come down. With great impatient strides, Tash forged up after it. Then he stopped, for he was not alone. Stretched out on a rock, half his height again above the level of Tash’s eyes, lay the Lion. It could not have been mistaken for any mere lion: it was Aslan, who had spoken with Tash in the lost dream-like chamber where the Books of Tash had been kept.

‘What do you want?’ asked Tash, with an uncertainty that would have disappointed those of his followers who eagerly recounted tales of how he had defied omnipotence.

‘Nothing,’ said Aslan.

‘Then you should go away,’ said Tash. ‘It is over between us.’

‘This is my world,’ said Aslan, in a voice that might have sounded petulant if it had not been so deep and resonant and filled with divine power and compassion. ‘Everything that is in it is part of my lawful charge. It will not be over between us, Tash, until the sea is poured away and the sky is rolled up like a carpet. Even then it will not be over between us.’

Tash thought with horror of the long empty years ahead of him, and said nothing. He held his shoulders high and turned his head slightly to gaze into the face of the lion.

‘I am sending her back to her own world,’ said Aslan.

‘It is no concern of mine,’ said Tash.

‘I cannot send you back to your own world,’ said Aslan. ‘The world you knew is ended. But I have allotted it to you, and arranged it so that one day when your power has grown enough that you can endure there, you can find you way back, if you wish.’

‘Why do you play these games with us?’ said Tash. ‘Why bring us into this world and torture us? You are as bad as the Overlord.’

Aslan did not take any offence at this comparison, but looked at Tash with soft dark eyes. They glistened in a strange way in the dim starlight.

‘You are only one thread in a picture woven of many other threads,’ said Aslan. ‘Prince Margis is one such thread, and Josephine Furness, and Fleetpaw who you slew in Telmar. Could you see the picture, you could see the wisdom and the beauty of it: but it is not given to anyone to see the whole picture at this time, except for my Father and I; not while the worlds endure.’

‘That is no proper answer at all,’ growled Tash. ‘It is just playing games with words.’

‘Is it?’ Aslan asked Tash, and his voice was greater than the voice he had before, far greater, brighter than suns and heavier, with infinities of space and time behind it.

‘Where were you when I laid the foundations of this world? Tell me, Tash, if you understand. Do you know who fixed the dimensions of this world, or who measured it? The nature of the stones it sits upon? Who set them in place, while the morning stars sang together, and the spirits of the void shouted for joy in words that were not yet words?’

‘Do you know who set bonds on the sea when it gushed forth from the womb of its mother? Do you know her name? Where you there when I made clouds as garments for the sea, and set a border of breaking waves around its fierceness, and peopled it with men for which this speech will never have names? Can you say to the sea: this far you may come, and no further, and will it heed your command?’

‘Have you commanded the day to show itself? Have you sung forth the dawn? Have you called out the beams of the sun, so that they make bare the secret places of the world? Have you brought to light the hidden wickedness of men and beasts? Or the hidden sources of the sea? Have you walked in the deep places where no light comes, or on the heights where the sky is black at midday? ‘

‘Can you part the gates of death, Tash? Can you see beyond the gates of that-not-yet-made? Have you counted out the worlds as numberless as drops of rain in a storm, and the stones in their riverbeds? Tell me, if you say my talk of a pattern is only playing games with words. Which is the path that leads to the place where light lives, and which leads to the home of darkness? Can you guide all creatures to their homes, and call them by their true names? For before light was, or darkness was, I am.’

The great voice of the Lion thundered down on Tash, and it seemed to him that these words as the Lion spoke them were being spoken at countless times and in countless places, to countless people like him and unlike him, but at the same time they were words only spoken once; they were words bound to no one time and place, which had their being in eternity. Not Frank, nor Helen, not Digory and Polly, nor the Queen Jadis herself, ever heard Aslan speak in that voice: it was a voice that would not be heard in Narnia again for thousands of years.

‘I know I am useless,’ said Tash. ‘You are not the first to tell me that. Before you I am nothing. And of course I do not understand the things you understand, and cannot do the things that you can do. But you have brought me here, and set me on this path, the one I read about in that book. There is nothing inside me but dust now. There was a kind of fire in me: but nothing is left now but ashes. I submit. I have submitted.’

Tash had it in him still to defy omnipotence, as his followers said, and he did not bow his head or let his arms droop, even as he said these words.

‘Your story will go on for a long time,’ said Aslan, and Tash was quite certain that the glistening in the Lion’s eyes was tears. ‘Your thread will not be cut.’

‘I made my choice,’ said Tash. ‘And now I will play my part in your game. What else can I do?’ He stared unblinking into the face of the one who had sung the stars into being.

A cloud passed over Tarva, and there was a clattering of hooves that let Tash know the white stag had caught the scent of the Lion. Ten leagues to the northeast, King Margis gave the order to attack Tash’s camp.


	36. The End of This Story and the Beginning of All the Others

It was a clear night in midsummer, and after a scorchingly hot day the little city of Balan was rapidly cooling off. Josie – or as it is proper to call her at this point, Queen Josie – was walking in the palace garden. With her walked her two companions: Mirilitha the gazelle and Eunomia (that is, Candytuft), daughter of the sow Primrose. Mirilitha was a matron of the gazelles now, verging on old age, and walked with a measured elegance far removed from the flitting of her youth. She had come to dwell permanently in Balan with Josie when her children had grown big enough to look after themselves. Eunomia was twelve, which is a solid age when a talking sow ought to be thinking about settling down and raising a family: but she was much cleverer than any of the small group of marriageable talking boars in Calormen, and not wise enough to keep this a secret from them.

It had been nearly twenty years since Josie had fallen into this world. Thirteen years had passed since Tash had stolen into the palace and taken Gerald away; ten years since the twins had been born; and three long months since King Margis had ridden away to the southern marches to challenge the raiders that had been so troublesome in recent years. Ninety-nine long days; Josie had counted.

Queen Josie’s face was creased with care, but it had not turned sour or cruel. King Margis was a good husband; and Mara and Bardas were growing up healthy and bright and well-mannered. She knew her strangeness was still muttered about in the bazaar – her blindness, her rumoured sorceries, her foreign looks and uncanny youthfulness, the strange witchly life she had led before the Prince brought her back to Calormen – but she had worked hard not to make unnecessary enemies, and the many talking beasts that had flocked to Balan in her husband’s reign were her enthusiastic partisans despite the sometimes reluctant praise she gave to Aslan. Life in Balan had been comfortable, and rarely dangerous, and there had been much to do – there had been much she knew that she had not known she knew, lessons a girl had learned in the 20th century that could be profitably applied by a queen to Calormen. Josie felt useful there. She was useful there. Her life in Telmar seemed like a dream, and her life in Australia only a dream within a dream. She still thought of Gerald, every day; but less often of Tash.

There was no jasmine in the palace garden, but a willful breeze brought the scent of it to Josie from somewhere else in the city, and she frowned.

‘There will be word soon, my Queen,’ said Mirilitha, mistaking the reason for her frown. Two days ago a messenger had arrived bearing word that a pitched battle was imminent, and the King had expressed every confidence of success. ‘There will be victory, and then the King will return, if Aslan wills it.’

‘Yes, if Aslan wills it,’ said Josie. The breeze was cool in her face, but it still brought with it that unwelcome scent, with its reminders of things that once were and should not have been.

‘Someone comes,’ said Josie. She could hear wings on the air. Smaller than the wings of an ifrit, but only a little; the wings of a great bird that had no business in settled lands at such an hour. ‘It is Nesher.’ Josie stood by the side of the fountain that had been made in memory of Kurtas, the King’s dead elder brother, and waited for the eagle.

‘My Queen,’ said the bird, bowing before her in an imitation of the human gesture. In the way he spoke these two words Josie knew already the message he brought, and before he could say anything more she reached out a hand to steady herself on the fountain.

‘I fear the King is dead, my Queen,’ said Nesher.

‘Thank you, Nesher,’ said Josie. Her knees wavered, but did not fail her, and she took hold of Mirilitha with her other hand while Nesher told her the story. How the raiders had been prepared for the surprise attack, and fallen unexpectedly on King Margis from behind; how it was said it was Gerald who had slain him, with a spear through the chest; how he had died bravely and quickly, and spoken of her and the children at the last; how the King’s cousin Shomon had withdrawn the army without a rout, and hailed Bardas son of Margis as King, and was returning so that arrangements for his Majesty’s minority could be made. She would remember every word the eagle said later, she knew, and turn them over in her mind and understand them and feel the sourness and bitterness of each one; but as he spoke they were only sounds without meaning. There was only one thing that had meaning, and that was the one fact that her husband was dead at the hand of her son. She stood without any outward sign of emotion, like a Queen carved from stone.

‘My queen?’ It was Eunomia’s voice, and Josie was not sure what question she had asked. ‘Very well,’ she said, agreeing to whatever it had been, and let herself be led back into the palace.

 

Much later that night Josie sat alone in the Hall of Stars with a dagger on her lap. The night had grown cool enough that the wind through the high open windows of the room raised goose-bumps on her arms. Gerald had liked this room, with its view of the city, the way it caught the wind from the sea, and its walls carved with figures representing the stars. It had been one of the places in Balan he had been happy, before-

Josie sat alone on a sofa of embroidered silk, her bare feet on the cool stone floor, and a table before her with an empty flagon of sweet wine. Her companions had finally left her alone, when she feigned that she was going to sleep; but she had crept back out into the Hall of Stars, and taken out the slim dagger that was said to have belonged to Josfeen of Narnia. She ran her fingers over the flat of the blade, feeling the perfect smoothness of the metal. Josie’s face ached. She rubbed the rough scar at her shoulder, where the talon of Tash had once gripped her, and her thoughts were of numb despair.

No: she could imagine too well the misery of Mirilitha or Eunomia when they found her dead in the morning. And her children – her younger children – she could not leave them. They needed her still. It would be horrible enough when they learned their father was dead. She would just have to endure. She put the dagger down on the table – no, further away, on the far side of the table.

Josie became aware that there was someone else in the room. Someone very large, and very silent, between her and the open window. A smell of clean fur came to her with the breeze from the window, tinged with strange hints of other things: cinammon and cloves and frankincense and burnt mutton fat and the flowers of her mother’s garden in Western Australia.

‘Aslan?’ she said. For a moment she thought she might be angry, like she had once been angry at the very thought of Aslan, but the little spark of fury flickered and died, having done its work of thawing the numbness inside her.

‘My child,’ said the Lion. His voice was like stone and wine and honey and gold. It was the most beautiful voice Josie had every heard.

‘I am sorry,’ said Josie, and she meant it more than anything she had ever said before.

‘It is not your fault, my child,’ said Aslan.

‘Isn’t it?’ Josie replied, in a small voice. ‘It seems like it is.’

‘The death of Margis is not your fault,’ said Aslan, and at the mention of his name tears swelled up again in Josie’s eyes when she thought she had been beyond crying.

‘You cannot tell your own story,’ said Aslan. ‘Your story is shaped by the stories of everyone else around you, and they have made it what it is as much as you have. You have done what you were brought here to do.’

‘I could have done it better,’ said Josie. ‘My-‘ She thought of Margis, and Gerald, and Tash, and Blackbriar, and everyone else, and she could not find words to put her thoughts into.

‘It is time to go home,’ said Aslan.

‘Home?’ said Josie.

The breeze was stronger now, and the smell of the sea was strong in it.

‘No,’ Josie protested, standing up and knocking her shin against the table. ‘I need to stay- my babies. They need me.’

‘It is time,’ said Aslan. The air in the room had changed, Josie felt. She felt almost as if she were outside, instead of inside.

‘Please, will they be alright?’ asked Josie.

‘No one is ever told any story but their own,’ said Aslan, in a voice as implacable as the voice of a mountain. ‘We will meet again, my child.’

‘Aslan-‘ called Josie, but then a wave of shockingly cold water hit her. She was bowled backwards, and sent sprawling onto a slick hard surface, her throat and nose burning from the salt water. She instinctively cast about for something to hold onto, and gripped hold of something. She clung to it, kneeling and bent double, while the spray lashed her face, and coughed, unable for a few moments to draw enough breath.

She felt lighter than she had. The old ache in her shoulder was gone, the heaviness in her belly and the stiffness in her back, but the arms that gripped the metal pipe for dear life seemed treacherously weak. Her clothes were heavy and uncomfortable. And soaked through with cold water.

‘Josie!’ came a frightened voice. ‘Josie?’ A door slammed wildly in the wind somewhere behind her.

‘Miss- Miles-?’ said Josie, very slowly.

‘Thank God!’ said the woman, lurching over to her. ‘Don’t you have the sense to come inside?’ She grabbed Josie’s shoulder.

‘I slipped,’ said Josie.

‘I’ve told you,’ said Miss Miles, breaking off before finishing the thought. A man’s voice called from the door, asking if he could help, and in a few moments Josie had been helped inside, into a warm corridor that rocked back and forth and was filled with strange smells of oil and iron. The sounds of the place jarred her ears. She had forgotten how jagged everything sounded in this world, how the sounds and smells of it were so much made by machines.

She was taken to a little room where Miss Miles helped her undress and dry off and into warm things, and gave her a cup of something hot and sweet to drink. Hot chocolate, she remembered after a little while, the memory of the name goaded out of a dim corner of her mind by the taste and smell of the stuff.

‘Poor Josie! You look like you’ve met a ghost,’ said Miss Miles. ‘Did you bump your head? Maybe I should go and fetch a doctor.’

‘No,’ said Josie, the first words she had managed to speak since being brought inside. ‘I’m fine.’

Miss Miles was not convinced, and went off regardless; no doubt Josie had sounded very odd. She sounded very odd to herself. When Miss Miles had left the room, her fingers felt at the place where the scar on her shoulder had been, and then the girlish flatness of her belly and chest. Could this really be her? This body felt so different. Such a slight, bony, ungainly thing.

Tears welled up in her eyes again as she thought of all that had happened. Of all that she had done. My children, she thought. My poor children. If only she could have told them something, before she was taken away. She balled her hands up into fists against her face.

‘I will try to do better this time,’ she sobbed to the empty cabin. ‘I promise.’

And the words of the song of the gazelles came into her head, without her wanting them to.

_In the tale of Love there are times_

_Other than the past, the present and the future;_

_Times for which no names have yet been coined._


	37. Epilogues

I.

‘They changed clothes,’ said Rass. ‘This is the queen.’

He had one hand knotted in the loose cloth at the shoulder of her washer-woman’s robe, and his companion Miftah, like him a ruddy half-ifrit, pointed a spear at her throat. She did not look at either of them, but glared furiously straight ahead at the man who was her true captor.

‘You dyed your hair,’ said this man. He was tall, and lighter-skinned than the barbarians he led, and only an indefinable knowingness in his face hinted that he was far older than the well-preserved forty he appeared. ‘But your eyes would have given you away soon enough.’ The queen’s were pale eyes of a colour somewhere between blue and grey, quite unlike the brown eyes of most men. They were the eyes of a northerner; or of one of the royal house of Calormen.

The disguised queen spat at the barbarian leader.

‘Oh, my queen,’ the barbarian leader laughed. ‘Is that any way to greet your brother?’

‘You killed my father,’ said Queen Mara. ‘You are no brother of mine.’

‘It was in battle I killed him,’ said Gerald. ‘If it was not a fair fight, it was not because I was the one a head taller than him.’ He showed no sign of his proverbial ill-temper, smiling down at the enraged face of his half-sister with exultant triumph. ‘Nor was I the one who descended on his camp before dawn, hoping to find him unawares. He should not have come looking for trouble, if he did not want to find it.’

Queen Mara ignored Gerald’s words. ‘I was not running away,’ she raged, twisting furiously in the grip of Rass. Like Gerald, she was fitter and smoother-faced than befitted her age, and it was whispered that she had inherited strange magic from her sorceress mother. ‘Lord Yevin is coming from the sea. When his army gets here, your ruffians will be driven from the city. You will all die in torments.’

‘And you will have a third husband, will you, my sister?’ said Gerald calmly.

‘I am not your sister,’ snarled Queen Mara. ‘I will see you roasting alive on a fire, son of Tash.’

‘Yes, I am the Son of Tash,’ said Gerald, letting iron creep into his voice. ‘He is inexorable, irresistible, and he will live forever.’

‘May you also live forever, Lord Gerald,’ Rass added enthusiastically, and Miftah hurriedly echoed his prayer.

‘You will not live another week, you unwashed savage,’ growled the Queen, her eyes bright with hatred. She tried to lunge towards Gerald, and Rass grabbed her other shoulder, while Miftah took a step forward so that his spear pressed against her chest.

‘I am master of Calormen now,’ said Gerald. ‘Yevin will never be King in Balan. There will be no more kings in Balan. I will rule, and those who come after me will be of my blood, and this will be Tash-Balan, the city of Tash.’

From a distant corner of the palace there came the sound of a wall collapsing, and then the raucous victory cries of Gerald’s men. Further away, somewhere in the city, rose the inhuman wails of a woman who has just discovered something too horrible for words.

‘You are mad,’ said the Queen. ‘Your so-called father is nothing but a wild beast, and your army of scoundrels will melt away when Yevin gets here. I will see the fingers of your sword arm pulled out, one by one. I will see your ears cropped and your balls crushed-‘

‘See, will you?’ said Gerald, his calm words now dripping with venom. ‘You will not see anything, dear sister.’

‘I am not afraid to die,’ lied Queen Mara. ‘I will be avenged, and you will suffer.’

Gerald nodded to Rass, and he gripped the queen’s arms tightly behind her back. Miftah kept the spear pressed against her chest. Gerald took a step closer, oblivious to the queen’s insults, and barked a laugh.

‘If I am ever tortured, my queen, you will not see it.’

‘No!’ cried the Queen, struggling against her captors like a true child of the royal house of Calormen, but Gerald had a swift hand and a good eye despite his years. Like he might have taken two birds on the wing with two arrows in succession, his dagger darted lightly in at the Queen’s face and turned her pale eyes into pools of dark blood.

Queen Mara did not cry out. She bit her lip until it ran red, and her breathing grew ragged, but she did not cry out. ‘I will still be avenged,’ she said with controlled pride, her face awash with gore. ‘You will not live to enjoy your victory.’

‘Bandage her wounds,’ said Gerald. ‘At the far end of the garden outside this hall you will find a door to an old wine cellar: put her there, and watch over her. I will speak with her in the morning.’

‘Yes, Lord Gerald,’ cried Rass and Miftah with enthusiasm. ‘May you live forever, Lord Gerald’.

***

II.

 

October 1st, 1983

Mrs Susan Bowles

Crampton House

Beaconsfield, Bucks

 

Dear Mrs Bowles,

I am sorry to tell you that my grandmother recently passed away and cannot answer your letter herself. I do not know if she ever intended to answer you, but I do not think that she would be upset with me for writing to you now she is gone since you went to all the trouble. Since it has been more than a year since you wrote I am sure you cannot be holding out much hope for a reply so maybe this will be a pleasant surprise.

My grandmother chose not to reply to your letter for reasons of her own, but I can assure you that your letter affected her deeply, and she was the one who told me off when I did not take it seriously. (As you may or may not know, my grandmother was blind from birth. In the past few years I have been the one who has read her letters for her and to whom she dictated her replies).

I will answer your last question first. You said you were interested in the particulars of my grandmother’s life: where she came from, what she did, what she thought about things.

My grandmother Josephine Westcott was a remarkable woman. She was born in a country town a little north of Perth in 1897. Her parents I think were both born in England but had met in Western Australia. She had one sister, Geraldine, who was four or five years older than her. When my grandmother was about 13 years old her mother and sister were killed in a carriage accident. I cannot imagine how terrible this must have been for her though from what you wrote in your letter I know you know only too well.

She could not live by herself so was sent back to England to live with her father, who had deserted the family some years before. He was the kind of unsuccessful speculator of the kind that were very common here around the turn of the century. At any rate, my grandmother did not get on with him at all, and soon showed herself to be extraordinarily stubborn and strong-willed in escaping his authority. There was no possible way she could live independently; but what she could do was persuade a man much better off than her father to marry her at a scandalously young age. My grandmother – a penniless girl from the colonies, and completely blind – contracted a marriage with a man twenty-five years her elder, a Major Milton. He appears to have been very much in love with her and to have refused her nothing. He was killed in WWI, leaving my grandmother a comfortably well-off widow at the age of 21. I am afraid I really know very little about these years of my grandmother’s life. Would you believe that my mother was thirty years old before she learned that my grandmother had been married before?

Around 1920 my grandmother returned alone to Perth, very self-assured and old for her years, where she married a solicitor – Allen Westcott, my grandfather. My uncle Edward was born in 1921, my uncle Louis in 1924, and my mother in 1930. My mother says she thinks my grandparents’ marriage was happy enough, although it was always very clear that my grandmother was boss of the family. She was a stern mother, my mother says, and they never really got on. She did not approve of my father, for instance, and there was a complete break between her and my mother for some years over him. (I am sad to say that my grandmother was correct. I don’t approve of my father either). I always got along well with my grandmother, though God knows she was stern enough with me at times as well. She did not like to have anyone see her sad, or out of control, and it was good that she was spared the worst indignities of old age – she stayed healthy and independent right up until the end, when she died unexpectedly in her sleep. I had expected her to go on and on and to celebrate her hundredth birthday.

As to her opinions, she was outwardly conventional, and my mother was brought up an Anglican. At heart though, I think she followed the convention of Josephine Westcott, and nothing else. I can still see her telling me what she told me when she caught me doing something foolish because my friends suggested it when I was about eight years old: “I don’t care what anybody else thinks, Clare- if everyone thinks it’s wrong and you know it’s right, that doesn’t matter. But this is something you know is wrong. You make the decisions you know are right, and stick to them.”

She told me once that all our religion and science were no better than trying to fit the ocean in a teacup. “The universe is too big and complicated for us to understand. The best that we can do is live in it.” That was in a very rare philosophical moment when she had had a few too many glasses of port, the anniversary of my grandfather’s death. He died in 1957, shortly before I was born, and shortly before he was due to retire.

About the time my mother was born my grandfather had the house built where my grandmother lived the rest of her life. She never liked to travel far, but while my grandfather lived they went on very regular trips into the country, a day or so’s drive distant, where she could smell the gum trees and feel the emptiness. After he died she stayed in the house that was really too big for her with my uncle Louis (he never married and died a few years ago) and then alone. She loved the birds in the garden, and sitting listening to the distant sound of the sea and the closer sounds of traffic, and having uncle Louis or myself read to her. I don’t know that she was happy – she had lost too many people close to her – but she was never openly unhappy and never once complained.

Now, to your first questions, about places called “Calormen” and “Tashbaan”. My grandmother just went quiet when I read you asking if she had ever been to those places, and if she was willing to tell you of the time she spent there. As I said before she told me off for making fun of these questions. I could not find those places in the atlas, though I suppose they are somewhere in the Middle East? From what I know of my grandmother’s life she only ever made the two trips to England and back when she was quite young. (Though she was always rather mysterious about that period of her life).

I probably would not be writing this letter if I had not heard her mention ‘Calormen’ several times since she received your letter – as if it had wakened memories that had long been sleeping. I cannot remember her ever mentioning it at all before.

For instance, I brought her some pistachio fudge earlier this year, and she said, ‘This is a very Calormen sort of food.’ I think she said it to herself when she thought I had already left the room. Another time a few months ago she said of a leather bottle in a Turkish style that my friend Robert had brought back from holiday that it was ‘the kind of thing they had in Calormen’. More recently than that I heard her reciting a poem to herself – I am afraid I cannot remember any of the words – and when I asked her about it she said it was a gazelle song from Calormen. But she did not tell me anything more about that place.

As for ‘Tashbaan’, I never heard her say that name, but I did on one occasion not long before she died hear her say the word ‘Tash’. This was the only time I ever saw my grandmother cry. I heard a noise and went to see if anything was the matter, and when I put on the lights she was holding the leather bottle. ‘Poor Tash,’ she was saying. ‘Poor dear Tash.’ I put my arms around her and asked what was wrong, thinking she might have had news somehow that one of her friends had died. (She did have quite a few friends who wrote her, though none who were particularly close and I could not recall any named Natasha). I can’t remember exactly what she said, and I asked her who Tash was. Then she said something very strange.

‘I have buried three husbands,’ my grandmother said. ‘I should have been true to the first.’

I said I did not understand, which I still don’t, and she said she was sorry to bother me with her problems, and not to mind her foolish chatter, and asked me when I was going to get married by way of changing the subject. ‘Did you really have three husbands?’ I asked her, not expecting her to answer me. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Four husbands. Two here, and two there. Poor Tash.’ I asked her where there was, but she sent me to get her some tea, and when I came back she was quite in control of herself and would not return to the subject no matter what. I would have thought only that my poor grandmother was starting to confuse things she had heard in stories with what was real, if it were not that this seemed to have been brought on by the bottle she said was like a Calormen thing, and she spoke of Tash which was like the other name you mentioned in your letter. So I think, strange as it may seem, that my grandmother did know of these places you asked her about, and that before she met my father her life was stranger than we ever imagined.

So little information must be frustrating for you, and I am sorry my grandmother could not reply to you herself. But I thought you should know that the names you mentioned did have some meaning to her, even if we will never know what it was.

I wish you all the best, and I am curious to know more about these places. If you felt able to tell me what you know about them I would be most grateful.

Yours Sincerely,

Clare Fenoli

***

III.

Tash strode away south with great strides. He did not need to walk; he could be where he wanted to be instantly by magic. Over long ages the magic he had once eaten had eaten him, had grown within him and beyond him like the germ at the heart of a seed grows into a tree, and he saw and heard with things that were not eyes or ears, and felt the world about him as if he were a thousand independent wandering Tashes. Magic suffused him, had changed every atom of his body.

But he remembered – yes, he remembered. And when he remembered, sometimes he liked to walk like a mortal, and go through the world as a mortal would go through it. There was a fear in the world as he walked that was not just a fear of him. The birds were hushed, and the very clattering of the streams sounded muted; he could feel the trees cringing as he went by. A greyness was spreading through everything: colour and life were leaking from the world. The birds knew the end was coming. The deer that fled at his approach knew the end was coming.

‘But they do not know how near,’ he said to himself. ‘They do not know how near.’

Tash remembered this world as he had first seen it, from the top of the wall of the hidden garden. The wall Aslan had destroyed. It had seemed so beautiful and new then, so full of hope and potential. But there was nothing here. No joy, no light, no peace, no respite from pain. No certainty of anything but that fate would shape things to a cruel end. No love. There had been love once; but that had been ages of the world ago, and the Tash who had loved was as dead as if he were dry bones in a forgotten tomb.

Tash paid no attention to the man in his arms. He had long since ceased struggling and screaming and had fallen limp. He was ephemeral, of no consequence, and he was a fool. He had thought that there was nothing more than what he could see and touch with his own hands.

‘And there is so much more,’ said Tash. ‘So very much more.’

A cold wind blew, almost a gale, and the tops of the trees began to bend. This was the wind that would not cease, Tash knew. Soon the earth would tremble, like it had trembled once before, and it would not stop until all the dwellings of his worshippers were cast down, Tash knew. And then the world would be swept clean.

‘I go, as commanded, as ever, to my appointed place,’ said Tash.

The wind grew stronger. A young squirrel called out in terror, seeking its mother. Tash walked to the hole in the world with one final step that was a thousand leagues. This place had always seemed dead, here in the depths of the desert, a circle of standing stones in the centre of which a hole in space and time now pulsed. The void slid away from Tash’s immortal senses as it had once slid away from his mortal ones – it was white, it was black, and it was loud, it was silent.

It had seemed dead, but it had not been a dead place. Tash could feel the life in the spiny desert plants, in the beetles and scorpions that crouched in the sand. There were footprints on the edge of the circle, beginning to blow away in the wind. Footprints of a gazelle. They would all be gone soon, and this place would be truly dead.

Tash did not think then of his long ages of dominion, of the empires that had worshipped him or the tyrants who had called him ancestor. He did not think of all the blood that had been shed in his name, and of how he had been lifted up to a little less than a God. He thought instead of a frightened girl who had sought comfort in his arms, and a rash promise made in an evil magician’s castle.

‘Josie,’ he said.

Then he stepped through into the void, and took his lawful prey back to his own place, his own world, where a palace of bone floated on a lifeless sunless sea.


End file.
